


Operation: Harmony

by Celticas



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cruise, Fake Relationship, M/M, undercover op
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2019-10-29 00:11:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 74,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17797358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celticas/pseuds/Celticas
Summary: Agent Phil Coulson, the badest ass of all the bad asses, and Agent Clint “Hawkeye” Barton, one of the top specialists at SHIELD, can not have a conversation without threatening each other. The hostile work environment has become too much and their friends and co-workers have come up with a plan.Unfortunately, no one said it was a good plan. a week long cruise pretending to be a married couple, what could go wrong?Please note the change in rating.





	1. Hook

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure how often this will be updated but I am working on it. I meant to post this on Valentine’s Day but close enough...

Specialist Clinton Francis Barton AKA “Hawkeye” was bored.

Medical had cleared him for duty four days ago, after a particularly nasty concussion from a FUBAR mission in Mayotte. For such a small country, they sure managed to create a hell of a lot of chaos. After a week and a half of Medical leave and fours days of ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happening in SHIELD, Clint was about ready to tear his hair out.

Natasha was off somewhere sowing the seeds of government sanctioned fear, and Coulson had already thrown Clint out of his office three times - not an all-time record but his handler’s tie _had_ been off centre by two millimetres this morning, so antagonising him was a not good, very bad idea. Which is how Clint found himself lurking in an out of the way corner of R and D. What? The blinking lights in engineering and competence of the Chemists was soothing, OK? Just stay away from the biologists, those fuckers were one breakdown away from the next accidental world domination attempt.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t realised how long he had been staring at a group of researchers. Hours ago, he had sunk into the still lake of his sniper’s mindset and was focusing on everything and taking nothing in. Even more unfortunately, one of the doctor’s was new to HQ and not used to the lurking tendencies of Strike Team Delta. Dr. Wambier, made uncomfortable by the unerring attention of one of the most dangerous people in the building, was distracted when he mixed the next chemical into his solution and hadn’t remembered to take it off the heat. The resulting explosion destroyed seven ongoing experiments, broke four of Dr. Wambier’s ribs and caused a further twenty days of medical leave between three other researchers. This was aside from the shock wave that shattered glass across half of the department.

Once the emergency response teams had triaged the injured and shut off the blaring alarms, Coulson appeared like a wraith through the smoke to drag his wayward asset out of the newest disaster zone to have cropped up around him. Clint, now significantly dirtier and with a collection of sluggishly bleeding cuts, was deposited in his rarely (see: never) used cubicle.

“I swear to god Barton, if you move from this chair before 1700, you will be mentoring the bottom 10% of every admin intake for the next six months.” Coulson glared down at the younger man. Phil had been in a planning meeting for the development of a new science base when he had been summoned to wrangle his asset, again.

“Aw, come on sir. We both know you’ll never do that. The paperwork for the death or dismemberment of baby agents is a bitch that would be worse for you to complete than the punishment would be for me.” Clint’s smile was falsely saccharine.

Coulson had opened his mouth to reply when Deputy Director Hill stuck her head out of the meeting Coulson was still meant to be in, calling him back.  He threw a heated glare over his shoulder as he walked away, only to see a hand lifted and five calloused fingers waggling in a mocking wave. Coulson’s face hardened further, leaving his expression positively stony by the time he reached his boss.

“What is it with you two?” Hill asked, looking at Clint slumped in a customarily uncomfortable office chair. “You have been the best team SHIELD has for almost a decade, but every time you talk outside of a briefing or firefight I’m legitimately concerned there will be bloodshed.” She stopped Coulson from moving past her with a light hand on his elbow.

A muscle in Coulson’s jaw ticked.

Taking a breath, he visibly tried to release some of the tension from his shoulders (it didn’t work).

“I assure you Maria, you have no reason to worry.”

“You keep saying that, but I still get the feeling that there is an imminent threat of bodily harm when you are in a room together.” For years she had been trying to get to the bottom of the animosity between the two.

Coulson turned a glare on her this time, and freeing his arm from her grip, he slipped back into the meeting. If Maria wasn’t going to believe him, there was no point in continuing to reassure her of Barton’s safety.

= + =

The bar was a favourite of the Senior Agents stationed in New York for two reasons; its location, and the lack of Junior Agents. At only three blocks from HQ it was easy enough to slip away from the office and grab a drink, while the atmosphere of dark, quiet neglect saw that most Junior who did wander in, wandered straight back out.

Hill slumped into the soft cushions of a booth in the back, not even detouring to get a beer. It had been a hell of a day. She was quickly joined by Sharon Carter, Jasper Sitwell and Felix Blake. The four of them and Coulson met once a month, missions and espionage allowing, to unwind among the only people who would understand the stressors of a life steeped in lies and global catastrophe. Coulson had begged off this month, due to concerns that his backlog of paperwork was threatening to develop sentience and take over the accounting office next to his.

Personally, Hill was glad for his absence. It wasn’t often that the cause of one of their needs to vent was one of their own, but this time the ongoing antagonism between Coulson and Barton had gotten the best of her.

Phil had never gotten his bead back into the meeting she had been trying to have with him and Agent Sampson, head of HR, after being called away to deal with Hawkeye’s latest explosion. After a further hour and a half of no progress being made, she had finally called an end to the meeting for the day, to be picked up tomorrow regardless of the state of any of Coulson’s assets.

Hill was jolted from her musings by someone thunking a perfect, full glass of beer on the table in front of her. Looking up identified the deliverer to be Sitwell, who had his own glass and an eyebrow raised in silent question.

“What?” She grumbled back in response to the look.

“What, what?” Jasper was so ready to play this game. Work had been unusually slow on excitement for a few weeks now and Hill baiting was always a good bit of entertainment… at least when she wasn’t armed.

Sharon, who didn’t agree with his assessment of the amusement to be gotten from frustrating their boss any further, kicked him in the ankle to shut him up. Hard.

Luckily for Sitwell (and unfortunately for Sharon), the bait had already been taken.

“Fucken’ Phil and Barton is what!” The words were pushed out in a low growl, past tightly clenched teeth.

“What did they do now?” Felix asked as he joined the table, having caught Hill’s words.

Sharon glared at the two men - Jasper for starting the conservation, and Felix for continuing it. This was not how she wanted to spend the night.

“It has been almost a decade and they are still at each other’s throats. Today I wasted two hours in a meeting with Phil, during which instead of paying attention, I am _positive_ he was plotting how to murder Barton and hide his body.” Hill glared into her beer in despair.

“That or how to get into his pants.” Jasper deadpanned, timing it precisely for when Felix was taking a swallow from his drink, resulting in a fine mist of dark ale being sprayed across the table. His announcement was followed by three pairs of incredulous eyes laser focused on him.

“What?” Felix choked, trying to clear the remainder of his drink from his throat.

“Oh, come on! Those two are so hot for each other they are eventually going to either fuck or murder each other.” Jasper couldn’t quite believe the _disbelief_ being directed at him. He had thought the obvious attraction between the two men was one of those unspoken but widely known secrets SHIELD was so fond of.

By the looks on their faces he had been wrong. The group around him were the best of the best (minus Romanov, who really was in a class of her own), and apparently every one of them had missed the spark between Phil and his asset. Had everyone else missed it too? Was _Jasper,_ the newest of the Senior Agents, the only one who had seen it? Awesome!

“Get lost.” Sharon finally found her voice. Though her face was still firmly entrenched in shock, causing her words to come out completely emotionless.

Felix was the first to shake off his surprise, a thoughtful look taking over his face. Sharon was next, having mentally reviewed all recent interactions between the pair that she had witnessed, identifying what Jasper was talking about and accepting it. Hill was last, so exhausted from the sudden replacement of her rage with complete and utter astonishment, that she was too tired to deal with the mental picture Jasper had just painted. She knew tomorrow she would be furious, because for the rest of time, whenever she saw the two men snarking at each other she would have the mental equivalent of a neon sign flashing the word ‘FOREPLAY’ in her head. In a fugue state she drained the last of her beer and wandered off for more alcohol.

It took Maria ten minutes to acquire a fresh beer and make her way back through the bar’s thickening crowd. During that time the other three had been playing chicken with restarting the conversation. Sitwell and Carter were staring across the table’s sticky top (courtesy of Felix’s earlier spit-take), while Blake’s thoughtful look had transformed into a mildly amused but very evil smirk.

The manic smile grabbed Maria’s attention because of its uncommon, but alarming, appearance on Felix’s normally immobile face. In the fifteen years Maria had known him, first as a green Marine private and later as a junior Agent when he moved across to SHIELD, that expression had never once heralded anything good, although often something amusing if you found yourself outside of the resulting blast radius.

“Has anyone been assigned to the Harmony mission yet?” Blake asked Maria, ‘casually’.

Instantly three voices sprung up, talking over each other in an almost incomprehensible cacophony.

“Which?”

“The what mission?”

“NO!” The Deputy Director’s loud rebuttal of the idea before it could even be fully vocalised won out over the other two voices.

“Felix, what is the Harmony mission?” Jasper bravely interrupted their boss as she again tried to negate the idea.

The predatory, teeth baring grin he got in return was instant confirmation that Jasper Sitwell, biggest shit-stirrer at SHIELD, was going to love the next words to come out of his friend’s mouth.

= + =

Clint was enjoying a lazy morning in bed. The early morning sun was shining through the window at the perfect angle (he was good at trajectories after all) to warm his toes when he fully stretched out. This combined with having remembered to set the coffee pot last night - resulting in the heavenly smell of a strong brew wafting in from the kitchen - was working up to be a pretty good morning in his books. The only thing missing that would have made it a _perfect_ morning would have been not waking up alone, but alas, that was not to be.

His languid stretching was oh so rudely interrupted by his cell phone ringing from deep within the folds of yesterday’s clothes, that he had dropped in a corner last night. After having shuffled stiffly through the front door the evening before, the last thing he had wanted to do was put his laundry in the hamper, instead it had been left where he had kicked it against the wall. Being nearly exploded, and then forced to sit in an instrument of torture masquerading as an office chair for hours, had resulted in every muscle in his back seizing up by the time he had left the office.

Cint scowled in the direction of his pants, the jarring tone heralding an abrupt end to his plans for a morning spent imitating an incredibly lazy cat.

Rolling out of bed, the normally graceful assassin ‘oof’ed softly as he hit the floor. Now that much closer to the annoying sound, he flung out one long arm and was able to snag a finger in the waistband and drag the vibrating pile of cloth close enough to dig out his phone.

“What?” He snapped into tit without checking the caller id.

“Agent Barton, you have been assigned a mission. Please bee in Conference Room Sierra at 0700 for briefing.” The unflappable voice of Agent Holliwell, Blake’s assistant, slid smoothly down the line before being abruptly cut off as she up.

Clint admired the absolute belief that that woman had that people would _do as they were told_. It was a surprisingly effective tactic that Clint wanted to steal but didn’t think he could pull off.

Clint threw the offending piece of technology into the exact centre of his unmade end. Then levered himself off the cold hardwood and stumbled to the closet to find something to wear. He decided on a purple t-shirt and a pair of official cargo pants, all together it projected an air of ‘yes, I am a professional but also fuck you for calling so early.’

= + =

At 0705 on the dot, Clint ambled into the depressingly grey room that was optimistically labelled Conference Room Sierra. In reality it was an airless, lightless box that was always 5 degrees colder than it should be and the small four-seater table and chairs made the room look like it was bursting at the seams even before you added people. Clint hated this room, for the chill and the persistent smell of burnt electronics from a hacker attack two years ago that slightly more than singed the server room next door.

Three of the seats were already taken. Senior Agents Blake, Sitwell, and Coulson were arrayed around the table. _Whatever this mission was it must be big_ Clint thought, _to have pulled these three_.

“Now that Agent Barton has finally joined us we can start.” Blake clicked a button on a small remote and the monitor on the wall lit up with an image of a small, soft looking man in his late 20s early 30s. “This is Mr. Aldis Riesgraf. A recent mission in London, England revealed him as on one of the main players in funnelling money to and from Hydra. Intel says this guy doesn’t do much but go to the office and go home making him normally hard to hit. However, he is taking his wife on an anniversary cruise next week.”

“If we can get access to his files without him knowing we can track an estimated 72% of Hydra’s funds.” Sitwell took over. “That’s where you come in Barton, you are going to go undercover as a passenger and open a backdoor in his system that SHIELD can exploit.”

“How do we know he will have his laptop with him?” Clint broke in. If the guy was on holiday, chances were he wouldn’t have any electronics with him. This mission sounded too easy to require three level 7s.

“Mr. Riesgrad is a work-aholic, and half of his clients require him to be contactable at all times. If he doesn’t have a work laptop with him, I will eat my badge. However, a team will take the opportunity of him being out of his office for an extended period to bug his office and home.” Blake took back control of the briefing.

So far Coulson hadn’t said anything, just sat in the corner and flipped through the information packet. Sitwell could tell the moment his friend got to the portion on the cruise itself as the normally stoic agent almost flinched.

Coulson broke into Blake’s droning summary of the mission parameters. “This says the cruise is couples and families only.”

The other three men turned to look at him. Blake with annoyance written across his face for the interruption, Clint in confusion, and Sitwell with unholy glee spread across his face.

“That’s where you come in Phil.” Blake said.


	2. Day 1: Departure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasper was expecting a quiet day at the office. Jasper very rarely gets what he expects.

Jasper Sitwell hated mornings. Oh, he could and did deal with them more often than anyone would want, but everyone except the agents so green they still smelt of spring, knew to keep as far away as possible until he had either drunk two pots of coffee or had the opportunity to lay into someone, hopefully an enemy agent but not always.

This particular morning was unseasonably cool, the subway had been late and he had been up even earlier than he liked so that he could catch Coulson before the older agent left on the Harmony mission. All in all, not a great way to start the day. Huddled into his coat like an annoyed owl he stepped through the main doors into New York HQ to be met by a hastily suppressed snort from the baby agent manning the desk. Everyone else were in light jackets and maybe a scarf, Sitwell looked like there should be three feet of snow outside.

The short, bespectacled agent threw a vicious glare at the agent whose insufficiently muffled _noise_ echoed in the large space. If walking at anything above silent hadn’t been trained out of him decades ago, Jasper would be stomping like a three-year-old. Instead he slid across the large space, pulling layers off as he went, hunting for his lanyard.

The beep and green flash of light that granted him access hadn’t faded behind him by the time he was in the elevator and stabbing the button for Office Floor 2. It was a quick, ear popping ride to almost the top of the building. SHIELD didn’t follow the normal floor numbering system. Office Floor 2 was the second highest floor, Office Floor 1 with Fury’s office and conference room was the only thing above it. As one of the top agents Coulson’s office was tucked into the far corner of the floor. This high up the windows looked out across a spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline. Staring out across the slowly waking city was where Jasper found his friend, a hard knuckle against the open door alerting the other man to his presence.

“Sitwell.” Phil acknowledge him without turning around.

Jasper always found it creepy when he did that. “Everything squared away?” He asked instead of expressing how creepy he found that.

Turning away from the window, Phil nodded. “Final paperwork and covers came in an hour ago. I’m just about to leave for the port.” He made his way to his desk as he talked. Gathering up a few loose papers he locked half of them away in the draws and the other half disappeared into a computer bag.

“And Barton?” Jasper poked at the bear.

The question got an immediate reaction, a scowl pasted itself across Coulson’s face. “What about him?”

Jasper shrugged, he had been fishing more than anything else, wanting to see what reaction he would get. “He ready?” He covered.

Coulson’s scowl deepened. “He was last time I spoke to him.” Which had been last night when they had firmed up plans to meet at the port.

“Ok, I.T. will be waiting for your ping.” Jasper beat a retreat before Coulson decided to take that scowl out on him instead of Barton.

Jasper took the stairs down two floors to Office 4 where his own broom cupboard of an office was located. His warm layers were tucked away in the draws under his desk and a quick check of his emails showed nothing that needed to be dealt with right at that second. With his normal morning rituals completed he returned to the elevator and rode down to Sub-basement 1 which held the cafeteria, the armoury, and sundry supplies store. Basically, SB1 was the life blood of the agency, no matter what R&D on SB4-7 felt.

With the odd hours that most of the agents kept, there was always a fresh pot of coffee and something to eat, even if it was just a pre-made burrito and tub of yogurt.

Armed with caffeine and sustenance, Jasper trudged back into the elevator for the ride back up the building to Ops 3. Unlike the office levels which for 90% of the time were only active between the hours of 9 am – 5 pm, Ops 1- 10 always had some level of activity. It was time to get the minions… err, Baby Agents…. _Junior Agents_ in line for the up-coming mission.

“Umm, Agent Sitwell, Sir.” Agent Beulke stuttered from his seat at one of the terminals.

“One or the other agent, you don’t need both.” Jasper spoke from directly behind the younger agent, making him jump. “What is it?”

“I can’t find Agents Coulson and Barton’s cover identities’ booking.” Beulke said, pointing at a screen of unreadable code, at least unreadable to Jasper.

Jasper frowned, that wasn’t great but was probably just a glitch in the cruise line’s computer system. Stepping away he called Coulson with the phone sitting at the end of the desk.

“Coulson, there seems to be a problem with the booking.” He said without preamble, having to speak up slightly to be heard over the mechanical whirring and hubbub of a crowd that told Jasper the other man was already at the docks.

 _“We’ve already checked in. I’m not returning to the office.”_ Phil, and it was definitely _Phil_ and not _Coulson_ on the other end of the line, said. The slightest grumble in his voice as he had slipped into his mission persona of overworked businessman. The words themselves were a green light.

Jasper could hear Barton’s happy laugh in the background and if that wasn’t a disturbing sound nothing was. Barton was only genuinely happy antagonising Coulson or pranking the juniors, and Coulson didn’t sound annoyed and there were no juniors to prank, so why the fuck was Barton happy? “Ok, send a flag if shit goes sideways.”

 _“Good. We’ll talk when I’m back.”_ Phil hung up.

Jasper was in just shitty enough of a mood that not getting the last word nettled him. “We have a go.” He told the room at large before leaving the room. Until they established comms later in the day, there was nothing for him to do here and he had reports to finalise from last week’s Brazilian milk run that a fresh out of the gate junior had managed to screw within five minutes, it went to shit so quickly Jasper was pretty sure it was a new record, but he had to wait to hear from Agent Dewey in Archives who kept the unofficial record books.

= + =

Pressing send on the last of the paperwork for the Brazilian Balls-Up, as he had started calling it, Jasper stood from his uncomfortable desk chair and his back cracking as he stretched and twisted. A glance at the clock on his wall brought a frown to his face. Coulson should have touched base by now. If the babies hadn’t let him know when contact had been made, heads were going to roll.

By the time Jasper stalked into the ops centre, he was ready to verbally eviscerate someone. The elevated hum of activity in the room suggested something wasn’t right.

“Beulke!” Jasper barked. “Why wasn’t I informed when Agent Coulson checked in?” Jasper continued without waiting to confirm that the other agent was in the room.

The man’s mop of bright orange hair popped up from behind a monitor. “Because he hasn’t, sir.”  “Yet.” He lamely tacked on at the look on the face of his boss’ boss.

“What?” Jasper growled, the room stilled at the single word. Everyone in the vicinity was too new to remember the last time Agent Sitwell had been this livid. It had involved a certain to remain nameless archer going off comms to chase after an also unnamed Russian assassin and then bringing down a small country’s government before finally returning to the fold with his tail between his legs. Oddly, Coulson had been the only one unconcerned at the time, saying Barton would either return with a new friend or not return at all. The brass hadn’t been particularly appreciative of that sentiment.

Jasper pulled in a deep breath, held it for a long seven count, and released it in a slow, controlled manner. Yelling at the babies wasn’t going to help, at least it wasn’t going to help with the mission, it would help with his mood.

“The ship left on schedule at 1035. However, Agents Coulson and Barton have not made contact.” Beulke stood, still half hidden by the console he had been working at. “There doesn’t appear to be any connectivity with the vessel outside of official shipping channels.”

“Find out if it’s a technical problem, or if they have been blown.” Jasper order. If they didn’t figure it out soon, he was going to have to escalate the problem. If he lost Coulson on a walk in the park, Fury was going to strip his rank so quickly he would be lucky if his skin didn’t go with it.

All of the techs in the room bent over their workstations and the sound of frantic typing drowned out the flurry and chatter from the other workers on the floor.

For over an hour the only sound was the clicking of keyboards, and hushed conversations between the techs as they did their work. Jasper spent the time grumbling his way around the room and mainlining caffeine.

“Agent Sitwell.” The voice of a young woman broke the pattern of work that had been established.

Jasper turned at the sound, he didn’t recognised the dark African-American woman who had spoken, but he nodded to show she had his attention.

“It looks like the crew is getting at least some emails out, they sent a confirmation of departure earlier, and just now their HQ received an alert from them that they were going to be changing their heading slightly due to a small boating accident off Long Island Beach.” She continued.

“Are any of the passengers getting a message out?” He asked the room at large. It wasn’t looking good for their agents if the ship had internet.

“Not that we’ve found.” A different agent spoke.

“Keep looking.” The order was curt.

For three more hours the room fell back into its rhythms of the morning. Agents coming in and out from bathroom and coffee breaks at a higher rate as the day wore on. By close of business they hadn’t found anything to suggest that the passengers had external access. As the sun began to set, unseen behind the thick concrete walls of the office building, Jasper called a time out.

“Hand it over to the night team. They can keep working on it.”

The techs were starting to flag, it had been an early start and a much more stressful day than they had all thought it was going to be, and there was no point in them working themselves into the ground trying to solve the comms issue. Either Phil and Clint were ok and would make contact when they could or they weren’t, there wasn’t much SHIELD could do from here. He would have a team waiting in the first port of call in two days to make contact and they would know more then.


	3. Day 2: Well Shit...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a day late. I have been working crazy hours at the moment and it slipped my mind.

 

It was never a good sign when a Senior Agent’s phone went off at 3.24 in the morning. It meant that either a running op had gone so far sideways the secondary lead, who was only in charge when the primary lead was asleep, couldn’t handle it, or something, somewhere had blown up spectacularly.

When the jarring tones All I Do Is Win blared into the otherwise still darkness of his bedroom, Jasper groaned and seriously debated introducing his phone to the finer details of the New York sewerage system. In the end he was a good little agent and answered the annoying device.

“What?” He growled, the sound barely recognisable as a word, but definitely recognisable as a threat that if this wasn’t world endingly important the person on the other end of the line would quickly find themselves assigned to that bumfuck crazy scientist who was chasing frost giants or some shit in Antarctica.

“Sir.” From the first word he knew it was important. Agent Robertson was one of the best intel analysts SHIELD had, she had also been working on an increase in chatter in the Balkans for months. “Soskin has come out of hiding.”

Jasper was out of bed and half way dressed before she had finished speaking. “Have Strike Teams Bravo and Epsilon ready to go the minute I get to base. I want to be in the air in 45.” Jasper hung up and finished pulling his shirt on. Less then three minutes since DJ Khaled had disturbed his sleep, he was out the door, still buttoning his shirt as he raced down the stairs.

At 3.30 am on a warm June night, the streets of New York were as empty as they ever got. Jasper hurried down and over one block to a 24/7 Bodega that he knew the late-night taxi drivers liked to hang around. Sure enough, there were three illegally parked under the buzzing neon sign advertising Marlboro Reds. He slipped into the first one he came too and gave the driver an address half a block down from HQ. You never gave the actual address.

Jasper arrived at the office, clothes askew and sans glasses, to find the ops floor on chaos. Soskin was high on their priority list and silent for months, they needed to make the most of him being active, but the number of agents hurrying in and out of conference rooms and armouries was excessive.

“Robertson, fill me in.” He spoke into the chaos.

The analyst separated from the crowd, a thick pile of manila files in arm. “Sir, we don’t know why or what, but something has stirred the underground pot. Half a dozen long term ops have gone live in the last hour.” She handed over the files and disappeared into the flow of agents again.

Jasper flipped through the files as he dodged Strike members, analysts, baby agents, and R&D scientists. Soskin was on top, followed by Kashmir Vennema, a geneticist working in some extremely grey areas who had apparently recently moved fully into the black, then Nick Pinto has been seen meeting with Vincente Fortunato, competing mob bosses, Akihiro, a suspected, violent Index case, had stuck his head out in Hokkaido, and the final file wasn’t on a person, it was a confirmed 084 in the slums of New Delhi.

By the time Jasper was pulling out his office chair, he had flicked through each of the files and had a rough plan in his head. None of these files could wait, which meant checking on Phil and Barton would have to. Emails began flowing from his account in an uncompromising tidal wave.

“Jasper.” Maria spoke from his doorway, breaking his concentration.

When he looked up at her, she had to stop herself from breaking into undignified guffaws. He had miss buttoned his shirt, leaving it crooked, and had resorted to the spare pair of glasses from his desk. The ones that Phil had gotten for him two years ago as a ‘present’ that were shaped like the Batman logo, but in bright pink and yellow.

Clearing her throat she spoke, “I’m taking Pinto and Fortunato, Sharon has Vennema, and Akihiro, your keeping Soskin, and taking the 084. Your people are meeting in Conference A.” She left quickly to find somewhere to break down in laughter in private. Nothing good would come of the babies thinking she was human.

Jasper hustled out of his office, grabbing up files before ploughing through the busy corridors. Conference A was one floor down and on the opposite side of the building. It was also Jasper’s least favourite conference room, too cold in winter and too hot in summer and perpetually smelling of slightly off eggs. Although they were all pretty bad for one reason or another.

By the time he was pushing his way into the conference room, it was already bursting with people. The two strike teams he had originally been going to assign to Soskin took up one end of the room, their ribald jokes and exaggerated stories further filling the space in the middle were the four analysts, two for each team. They were talking quietly, pouring over surveillance shots and pointing out possible features of interest, using each other as sounding boards and fresh eyes. In most intelligence organisations, this level of information sharing with people of different teams would be a jailable offence, SHIELD was different, they had found introducing new perspectives got better results, allowed a team to back-fill without having to waste time on briefing someone, and the shit they dealt with was so weird that you needed other people to look at a situation, come to the same fucked up conclusion and assure you, you weren’t going crazy, that was definitely a herd of miniature, hot pink, wooley mammoths running riot across the Outer Hebrides.

Jasper dumped his folders on the table in front of the only open seat. The heavy slap of paper against laminated wood, cut through the noise.

“Strike Epsilon, you are being moved off Soskin and onto an 084 in New Delhi.” He passed one folder to their analysts and another to Agent Timothy Kaur, Epsilon’s team lead.

= + =

Before sun rise, his teams were in the air. The halls slowly emptied as Strike teams were assigned and analysts scampered back to their work stations. As movement through the building became easier Jasper set out to find Maria. He had had a chance to look over the mission assignments and no one had been tasked with touching base with Phil and Barton in Puerto Rico.

“Maria!” He called, spotting her about to turn the corner in front of him.

The pace of her steps increased the slightest bit. Whether she hadn’t heard him, unlikely, or was trying to avoid him, he would bet on it, she wasn’t going to get away from his that easily. He stretched his own steps out to catch up. Rounding the corner, he called out again, and being only a few feet behind her, this time she had to stop.

“Agent Sitwell, I’m about to step into a meeting. We can talk later.” Maria said, the beurocrotese dripping from her voice. She was hiding behind her position and now he knew she had definitely been trying to avoid him.

“No. We can talk now. No one is scheduled to check in with the Operation: Harmony team.” He glared at her. This had moved on from that stupid bet, Phil and Clint _still_ hadn’t checked in and Jasper was starting to worry. In the eight years Phil had worked for SHIELD he had never missed a check in, and Clint had only missed one during that disaster of a mission that saw the Black Widow defecting to their side.

“They’ll be fine.” She tried to turn away and get into her meeting before he could annoy her with this further.

“How do you know?” Jasper’s words brought her up short.

“If your so worried about them, _you_ go to Puerto Rico.” Maria glared at him over her files in challenge.

He turned and walked away, halfway down the corridor, still moving he spoke over his shoulder. “I’m going to take that as permission from the Assistant Director.”

“That’s not what that was!” She shouted down the hallway at him, but he was already around the bend and could pretend that he didn’t hear her. All he had to do was avoid her for a couple of days, which with everything that was happening should be pretty easy.

= + =

The next few hours of Jasper’s day was lost to admin. Just as he was considering stopping for a slightly late breakfast, his Soskin team reported in. They had landed and were headed to the safe house. The next few hours were critical, making sure the safe house wasn’t compromised and making initial contact with their informant. They were two of the highest risk parts of the mission, extraction rounding out the trifecta of statistically bad times.

He slipped into the back of the ops planning room his teams had been assigned and listened as for the next hour Bravo’s analyst talked them through the city, hampered by a build-up of traffic through Brasilija, a grain truck had over turned in the middle of the town and nothing was getting through, and then having to dodge a police blockade in Liman. By the time the four-person team was settling into the safe house in the children’s theatre, Jasper’s stomach was cramping with hunger.

He glanced at his watch as the normal rhythms of a team battening down filtered through the comm units. The New Dehli team would be landing any minute now and by the time they had gotten to their own safe house, Omega would be half way through their meet. With a quick mental calculation, he grumbled to himself, he wasn’t going to be able to get down to the cafeteria to snag himself something to eat, even if it was only a plastic wrapped sandwich that had probably been at SHIELD longer than he had, until well after lunch time and he hadn’t eaten since dinner last night.

Jasper regretted not getting something to eat earlier but there wasn’t much he could do about it now. An email pinged into his email, it was probably the automatic your team has landed notification. He clicked into it to find an email from an Agent Kardel. It was a short three lines, two of which were the greeting and farewell. The middle lime was of more interest, or it would be if it wasn’t telling him they still hadn’t made contact with the cruise ship.

“Fuck.” He glared down at his screen, mind running a million miles an hour running through the active roster that he had been working on for the last hour to try and find someone free to go to Puerto Rico.

Before he could figure out a solution, Agent Robertson called out to let him know that Epsilon had landed. He set aside the problem. He had a few more days to work it any way.


	4. Day: 3 And the Hits Keep Coming

Having left the office at a relatively early, or what a civilian would call normal, hour the day before, Jasper was back in his office bright and early. He had a pile of paperwork from his three active ops to go over, even if so far today Harmony was just a continued ‘No Comms’ report that Kardel had emailed through at midnight and again at 6 am. She was following SOP of quarterly updates to the minute. When the midday email pinged into his inbox he actually smiled even though it still wasn’t good news. It did serve to bring him out of his 084 induced stupor and give his stomach a chance to inform his head it was hunger and had been hours since it had been serviced.

With 92% of the needed reports filed and everything in a holding pattern for a few hours as things worked themselves out, he decided to head out of the office for an early lunch. His food truck app told him Marco’s Tacos was three blocks down and that wasn’t a coincidence he was willing to miss out on.

He had a short thirty-minute window to get there and back, Charlie team was going into the Riesgraf’s apartment this afternoon in the guise of painters and he needed to be here for that.

He made it back with two and a half minutes to spare. Agent Kardel was just settling into her chair. Putting his comm unit in, Jasper could hear Agent Syler running through his comm check.

“Charlie proper, this is home proper. You have a go.” Jasper tapped into the conversation once the team had finished checking their equipment.

“Home proper, this is Charlie proper. Roger that. Turning on visual feed and going in.”

The video wall suddenly filled with light and movement. Four of the screens were short point of view feeds, one for each of the team members, another four were still blank, they would eventually hold the feeds that were going to be planted, and the last two were 2D and 3D maps that showed the bright spots of each of the team members’ trackers. With a fake work order to repaint the foyer of the Riesgraf home, it was easy enough to talk their way into the building. SHIELD had planted an email chain that was good enough to pass the bored inspection of the super.

The man let them into the apartment and left them to it, all without even checking their entirely fake ids. It wasn’t unusual that an op had been running for three days before anything went right. It was surprising that it was one of Coulson’s ops. The man’s missions generally either went like fucking clockwork or straight into the dictionary next to FUBAR. Good missions equalled no missed check-ins, no late extractions, no loss of comms. If the mission had gone FUBAR the ship would be in pieces and inexplicable in the wrong ocean, all bets were off about which one though, and the pair of idiots would turn up a month late with a new pet assassin or a great recommendation for Ethiopian food in Ulaanbaatar.

The middle ground was making Jasper nervous. The whole thing would be having a serious impact on Jasper’s hairline if he had any hair left. As it was, he didn’t even taste the flavourful masterpiece that was one of Marc’s everything burritos and the coffee may as well have been tea for all the good it did.

Charlie was finished planting their bugs within an easy ten minutes and were able to spend the rest of the two hours they were meant to be there, rifling through papers and sock draws.

Two hours and three minutes after entering the apartment they left, making sure to sprinkle their clothes with droplets of paint. The door latched behind them and the one resident, three help, and the super didn’t give them another look as they trooped out. An infiltration in the late 90’s had graphically taught Jasper that no one looked twice at a messy tradesman but they sure as hell noticed a clean one.

Outside, the team loaded into a nondescript panel van and were away. Jasper couldn’t have wished for a smoother run. He did wish that his gustatory senses hadn’t deserted him earlier and he had been able to enjoy his lunch. As it was, he was left with a quarter of an inch of cold coffee the consistency of tar and a balled-up sheet of tin foil that he had absently been rubbing against the desk to smooth and polish it.

“Kardel, keep an eye on them as they return to base. Have the AA report on my desk by close of business.” By which Jasper meant before I leave and good luck guessing when that was going to be, could be in half an hour, could be at midnight. Jasper lobbed the tin foil ball into the bin and left, he had two other missions to be concerned with after all.

= + =

A knock on his partially closed office door broke Jasper’s focus. Blinking as his eyes struggled to focus on the distance after staring at his computer and paperwork for hours, he gave permission to enter. Kardel pushed the door open and stepped into the standing room only area on the other side of his desk. Ignoring the junior agent for a second, Jasper put a reminder in his calendar to see medical about updating his prescription.

“Yes?” He looked up.

Jasper had though that the other agent was just here to turn in his report, why the newbies thought they had to do it by hand and not just email the things remained a mystery. Getting a good look at her in the glow of the desk lamp that provided most of the room’s illumination dissuaded him of that notion. The analyst looked nervous. Almost like she was going to throw up. She looked bad enough that if Jasper had a visitor’s chair, he would be tempted to offer it.

“What happened?”

If something had happened to Charlie team, it would have happened hours ago. Kardel wasn’t working on anything else for Jasper at the moment. Which left Phil and Barton.

“Are they dead?”

“No, sir.” Her voice didn’t inspire much confidence.

It was the analyst’s turn to talk, so Jasper settled on his ‘I have no problem with eating your first born if you don’t start talking right the fuck now’ glare. It was effective 99.9% of the time. Phil, Blake and Maria were the only people who he had tried it on and been unsuccessful. It worked on Barton. He had never had the guts or circumstances required to try it out on the Director or Black Widow. He also wasn’t stupid enough to attempt it on Black Widow, Fury was fair game if it came down to it.

Kardel paled further. “There was an email from the Head of On-Board Security to the company’s head office. There was a fight. Mr Riesgraf was involved. So was Agent Barton.” The woman was rambling. Another one fell to the power of The Glare.

“Barton fought Riesgraf?” Jasper asked, trying to clear up the nervous ramble.

“Maybe.” Gathering herself, Kardel carefully held out a handful of pages. She had been holding them rigidly at her side.

Taking them, he flicked the file open. There was a single printed out page of paper inside. It was a copy of the email.

**\- - -**

**Altercation Onboard**

**Ms S. Tapping** [ **sarah.tapping@harmoniacruising.com** ](mailto:sarah.tapping@harmoniacruising.com)

**9:16 PM**

To: Mr Glenn Hendricks

Good Evening Sir,

At approximately 8.30 this evening two passengers began an altercation in the Alto Bar. A third passengers joined the fight. It was broken up by two security personnel and a fourth passenger. The most serious injury is a broken nose, otherwise it was kept to a few cuts and bruises.

The passengers involved were a Mr. Timothy Hawkins, Mr. Aldis Riesgraf, and Mr. Clint Barton.

A full report will be included in the end of trip summary.

Best,

Sarah Tapping

\- - -

Jasper could not believe what he was reading. Barton had gotten into a fight with Reisgraf. _Barton_ had gotten into a _fight_ with Riesgraf? Nothing about that made sense. All of their intel on the accountant said he was a small man, who shied away from conflict. And while off-duty, Barton might be a hot headed, annoying, smart-ass, he was also a highly trained SHIELD specialist and before that a Marine sniper. He knew how to keep his head during a mission.

The only good thing was that there was _some_ communication on and off the ship, and it suggested that Barton, and hopefully Phil, hadn’t been blown. With Barton getting into fights with their target, that may no longer be true, but it was on the good end of the news spectrum.

If only this Ms Tapping had put a bit more information in the email. Like who had been hurt? Was it Riesgraf (likely)? Or Barton (it better not have been)? Or this Hawkins (whoever he was, and if it was him hurt, Jasper didn’t care)?

“Work it into the known intelligence and write up an analysis.” Jasper ordered Kardel. He would take the updated information and Charlie’s AA reports to Maria. Hopefully it would be enough for her to let him go to Puerto Rico tomorrow.

“Yes sir!” Kardel turned to leave.

A quick call to the front desk told him Maria was still on base, it would just be a matter of finding her. A frustrating search of her office, _all_ of the ops floors, the cafeteria, the gym, and the senior agents bunks turned up nothing. Either she was in a meeting that he wasn’t cleared for or she was hiding. If it was the former there wasn’t anything for him to do but lurk outside her office waiting until she came back. If it was the latter she was probably in the old break room next to R&D 3. During their time as junior agents there had been a little bit of a biohazard problem in the lab next door and half the floor had been cordoned off for six months. Phil had been the one to put off signing off on it’s re-opening and by the time the researches had been allowed to return, everyone had forgotten about the little room.

Their group only went there when they were trying to stay under the radar, visit too often and others would catch on. Jasper took his time getting there. Wandering through a few of the labs, checking on a couple of the projects. Making nice with the people that built their toys. He was able to slip mostly unnoticed out of the Chem lab as Agent Simmons, a new recruit, forgot he was there as she expounded on the benefits of subcutaneous, chemical trackers. From there it was easy enough to disappear into the small, dusty room.

Jackpot.

Maria was at the single table, paperwork covering every spare inch.

“No.” She didn’t even look up.

“Yes.” He sat across the table from her and held the papers with the edge just inside her field of vision. From experience he knew how distracting that could be. The papers close enough to see no matter where your focus was but not close enough to see what it was.

They sat in stalemate. The old clock ticking the seconds.

Maria signed off a report with an annoyed flick of her pen. She glared at him hatefully as she snatched the papers out of his hand violently enough to give him a papercut. He glared back as he stuck the stinging finger in his mouth.

“And?” She asked after she finished reading the small pile of papers.

He took his finger out of his mouth before talking.  “And nothing.” He examined the small cut. “Just updating my boss on the mission.” He wiped everything except wide eyed innocent off his face.

“Bullshit.” Maria thrust the papers back his way. “You want me to let you go down to Puerto Rico to check on them. They are alive and even if Barton got his nose mashed it, it wouldn’t be the first time and isn’t anywhere near life threatening. I need you here.” She dropped the files on the table when he refused to take them back.

“That fight could have been because they were compromised, and Barton was defending them.” Jasper knew it was weak but had to try.

“Really? No, really? That’s what you’re going with?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “They are fine.” She pointedly turned her attention back to the papers she had been working on before he found her.

Jasper left the files with her, he had his own copies. Checking his watch as he ambled towards the lifts, he decided to check in with the analysts for Bravo and Epsilon before calling it a night. Back up 18 floors, Ops 2 had powered down as much as it ever did. It was a few hours before dawn in Europe and all of the night movements had been completed.

Agent Beulke was sitting at his monitor, scrolling through the video feeds that Bravo had set up around their safe house and the target’s compound.

Jasper watched him for a second. The analyst continued to flick through speeds, unaware of his boss’ presence.

“Agent!” Jasper barked. Taking a little of his annoyance out on the unsuspecting Junior.

He jumped very satisfactorily.

“Sir!” Beulke spin in his chair, almost tipping himself out onto the floor in his hurry to stand up.

Jasper bit back a smirk. “Status report?” He demanded instead.

“Oh um.” Beulke stuttered. The younger agent turned back to his desk and began riffling through a pile of papers. Finding what he was looking for he held it aloft with an Ah-ha of triumph. “Here you go sir.” He handed it over.

Jasper looked at the papers he had just been handed. It was a print out of the day’s AAs. For fucks sake he _had_ printed the damn thing.

“Thank you, agent.” He sighed. Let someone else educate him, he had enough to do with whatever trouble Barton was stirring up in international waters. If this whole thing went FUBAR he was going to take it out of Blake’s skin for suggesting it and then fucking off to New Zealand on a two week undercover.

He left before he said anything else. Up one floor on Ops 3, Robertson was waiting for him. The floor was buzzing, it was only midday in most of Asia and afternoon in Oceania.

“Sir, Epsilon just got to the river bank where the 084 was reportedly seen. It’s not there.” She handed him a tablet with the images that intelligence had initially flagged and then photos that Agent Kaur had taken, they were obviously of the same collapsed riverbank. The later images had a hole where the metal statue had been.

 It was going to be a long night.


	5. Day 4: Juggling with Knives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay a longer one! Unfortunately there is a trade off, I don't think I am going to have the next chapter finished in time. It will probably be three weeks instead of two.  
> Sorry.

Jasper was done. He was done with analysts who couldn’t stand up to Strike Leaders, he was done with Strike teams that couldn’t follow an order even if their life depended on it, which is often did, and he was done with tiny local museums wandering off with 084s. He had only managed to stumble to his on-site rack at quarter to five in the morning after handholding the whole fucking team through tracking the 084 and then having to plan and approve the retrieval mission after Kaur wanted to go in all guns blazing. He had finally left them to it after Epsilon had the 084 in hand and were on their return journey to the Safehouse. 

To say that he was upset then when he walked into the chaos on Ops 3 would be an understatement on par with ‘Agent Coulson was a little interested in Captain America’.

“Robertson!” He barked into the chaos. “What the fuck is going on?” His entrance and demand for information went unheard, it felt a little like screaming into the void.

“We’ve lost Epsilon Sir!” She answered him without standing from her terminal. 

“What do you mean, we lost them?” He barely avoided running into a scientist he had never seen anywhere other than the shadowed halls of R&D 1 as he crossed the room to join her.

“At 1 845  local time, all of the life signs of Strike Epsilon  disappeared. 1 84 4 they were there, heat signatures showed three of them in the living room area, and the forth doing a perimeter sweep. 1 8 15 nothing. All indications of the team were gone. I was able to  retask  a satellite from northern Afghanistan within 10 minutes, I have run through the whole spectrum of imaging that we have available and nothing. The only think I haven’t been able to do is get human-int.” As she talked, she ran through each of the captured images to show Jasper the results. 

Every picture showed the same thing.  A neighbourhood bustling with people and life, and a house in the middle of it without even a mouse creeping around the basement.

“Well, shit.” Jasper took a moment to pulling a deep breath and release it. He knew  off the cuff planning  wasn’t his strong suit. He planned things to a T and every possible problem. He had fucking flowcharts! This sort of thing was more Blake or Phil’s  forte  but  they weren’t here.

First problem ;  get boots on the ground to check the house and secure the 084. Second ;  find Epsilon. Last, figure out what the fuck happened.

He turned back to Robertson. “Who and where are our closest assets?” 

She didn’t answer for a long minute, flicking through screens faster than Jasper thought was possible. “Blake and his team in New Zealand are our closest but are unavailable. Agent Edmonds has a team in north-east Russian that could be in the air in an hour.” She flagged the locations of the two teams and their estimated arrival times.

Neither option was good.

“OK, put Edmonds on stand-by. I’ll be back in ten.”

He made sure  all of  the information was on his tablet and then used his priority code to override the elevators and speed him to  G 1 . Unlike the day before, Jasper found Maria exactly where he expected to. She was in the  public  conference room , the only place SHIELD allowed non-SHIELD members to be without the express permission of Fury himself, something that had only been granted three times. She was  presiding over a table of FBI, NSA, CIA, and DoD officials that had come in for a meeting on  ‘Inter-Agency Co-operation’ which Jasper took to mean, Maria telling them that if any of their people ever got in the way of a SHIELD op again she would end them and their agency.

“Assistant Director Hill.” Jasper took a perverse pleasure in interrupting the CIA official.

“Senior Agent Sitwell. I’m in the middle of something.” Her micro expressions screamed that it had better be important.

“Epsilon has run into some trouble.” His micro expressions answered that it was.

“Excuse me gentlemen.”  Stepping out of the room she waved her assistant in. Agent Holt would finish threatening them on her behalf.  “What’s going on?”

He briefed her on their way back to the elevator.

“I can’t pull Blake. Send Edmonds in and then backfill his team once someone else becomes available. We can take over remote monitoring from here until then.  How is Bravo going?”

“Fine last time I was able to check. I am heading there once Edmonds is in the air. And Charlie goes in at 1300.”

“Keep me updated.” Maria ordered as Jasper stepped off the elevator back into Ops 3, which was much calmer than last time.

“Will do.” The door closed giving Jasper the last word. He was now one up in the ongoing count.

Jasper stuck his head into the active ops room. “Robertson get Edmonds in the air.” Jasper ordered the analyst before leaving again. He decided to take the stairs to one floor down to check on Bravo.  Ops 2 was the opposite of what Ops 3 had been that morning. Only a few people were huddled over computers speaking softly to various team members of flicking through surveillance and intel reports as they waited for something to happen.

“ Beulke , how are Bravo going?” The calm of the room didn’t even tense with the presence of the boss, a good sign.

“They have eyes on  Soskin  sir. He just left a café in the centre of the city. They followed him there from a meeting with a bank and are in place to continue following him from here. Agent Ilitch was able to get a tracker onto him in the café.”  Beulke  managed to get through the update without stumbling or stuttering once. 

“Good. I want hourly updates  unless something changes.” Jasper only waited for a nod of understanding before sweeping out of the room again.

One more stop before breakfast. Not coffee, that had come first.

Agent  Kardel  wasn’t at her station on Ops 5. Instead an emo looking tech was bent over the machine pulling it to pieces. He would have been going for his sidearm already if he hadn’t spotted the SHIELD ID tag hanging from a clip on her waist and that there were other analysts in the room not giving her a second glance. A few even giving her a quick head nod of greeting.

“Who the hell are you?” He growled, hand twitching with wanting the feel of cool metal under his fingertips.   
“Hi! Hello.” A bright smile lifted the gloom that the dark clothing had blanketed the woman in. “I’m Felicity. Just getting Janet’s computer back in working order. Someone who shall not be named spilt a latte on it. I’ll have it fixed in a jiffy though. No worries.” The ramble caught the Senior Agent off guard. Not many people got into SHIELD who where that naturally chirpy and managed to hang on to the good cheer.

“And where is Agent  Kardel ?” He managed to get out around his shock.

“Here sir!” The wayward analyst appeared in the  doorway,  three mugs of steaming coffee clutched in her hands. She quickly passed one each off to Jasper and Felicity, keeping the third for herself. The smile she gave to Felic i ty along with the coffee was more than just friendly.

“Where are we at?” For his own sanity he chooses to ignore the optical interplay. 

“At 1124 hours Agent Coulson was able to place a short unsecured call into the  message box set up under his cover identity. He reported an all clear, no comms. Charlie Team are currently in  Riesgraf’s  office. No direct comms as ordered.” She summarised the pertinent information even as she logged back into her station.

“ How long have Charlie been in?” Jasper asked, opening the op. run sheet on his tablet.

Not long was the answer.

“About ten minutes. Agent Casper has been monitoring while Felicity got my station back up and running.”  Kardel  answered that question and the next one.

“Casper!” Jasper called out, not looking up from the screen.

“All quiet sir.” Was shouted back.

“Let me know when Charlie gets back.” He ordered  Kardel  before leaving. He had other things to do and she had handled everything else in this mission professionally so far. 

Checking his watch as he stepped out of the ops centre, Jasper decided he had time for a quick lunch  and check in with his office,  before  he would have to get back to Ops 3. Agent Edmonds  and co were scheduled to land at 12.30 New York time  which was still an hour away. After a subpar sandwich and a good cup of coffee, he indulged a little bit and got a second cup, it was probably going to be another long day. All his could console himself with w as  that the  Soskin  operation was shaping up to be ok, even if  Beulke  wasn’t as intelligent as Jasper generally liked his  _ intelligence officers _  being.

Taking his refilled cup of coffee to his office, he left the door open, he wasn’t going to be there for long enough to get anything significant  done, and  logged into his email. Every time he opened his email he felt like Sisyphus. The constant in and out of messages at all hours of the day a never-ending task.

Nothing major had come in, a few final reports from operations he had finished, requests for information or permission or equipment that were pressing but not urgent, and the updates on his current operations. All in all, it was the usual and didn’t take long to sort even if he only completed the requests on a quarter of it before his alarm was telling him Edmonds was due to land any minute.

Locking up the office of a senior agent was always a painstaking task , even if they weren’t leaving the building. It was the number one, number two, and number three, reason must Senior Agents ended up  putting a coffee maker in their office within two weeks of their promotion. Jasper happily encouraged the  misconception of lower level agents that the prevalence of coffee makers was proof that the bosses never left the building, never slept and saw all.

Agent Coulson was the exception, as he was in most things. Jasper hadn’t figured out how the other man always had a fresh cup of coffee on his desk, even before he had been assigned an assistant.  Jasper figured it was either one of Coulson’s divine powers as the God of Paperwork, or he had a secret thermos  of the good stuff that he didn’t want to share. 

Turning the last lock, Jasper made a quick stop at the  public coffee maker, he hadn’t been in his office long enough to make brewing his own worth the  effort and  went to check in with Agent s Robertson and Edmonds. He wanted to be  in the room when the Russian team landed.  If they pulled a Houdini like their predecessors, Jasper needed to be available to  respond. Although what he would do if that happened was beyond him.

The moment he stepped off the elevator on  Ops 3 , someone called his name. Turning towards the sound, he watched as Agent Kaur hurried out of the stairwell.

“I was just coming to find you sir. Charlie Team are back on base, safe and sound. All surveillance equipment is in place and they were able to mirror Mr.  Riesgraf’s  hard-drive. It’s still encrypted but they have passed it off to IT to crack.” Agent Kaur fell into step with him as Jasper continued down the corridor towards the operation room being used by Epsilon’s analysis and support team.

“Good work Agent Kaur. Let me know when they are in.” They parted ways as she turned back towards the elevator bank and Jasper pushed through the door into the ops room.

It  was quiet. A nervous tension running through the  hurried footsteps of agents moving around the dimly lit space.  Bitten lips were bleached white in the monitor glow as analysts dealt with or waiter for, any incoming information. Rather than break the hushed anticipation, Jasper slid into the vacant seat beside Agent Robertson  and a slid a full mug of creamy coffee onto the desk beside her elbow. She had been diligently sending him  half-hourly updates, which while informative were becoming hard to read from muddled grammar.  He had checked her work logs and not been surprised at all to find that she had never logged out the night before. He would have tried to  order her to get some rest while Edmonds and co were in  transit  but she would have ignored him .

While Sarah Robertson was one of the rising stars of the  intelligence team, she could be  _ too _  dedicated.  Even thinking that someone could be too invested in their job hurt Jasper somewhere deep down in his  own stubborn soul, and he would never, not even on pain of death, tell Sarah to ease up , but it was nevertheless true.  With a team she was responsible for missing, it was unlikely that she would leave the Ops floor  and only coffee and bathroom breaks would get her leaving the room.

Sarah took the mug without looking away from the screen she was working on. Taking a tentative sip of the drink. It was only when the  mix of cream and perfectly roasted coffee touched her tongue that she looked up. The coffee on  Ops 3 was always bitter from over roasting the beans, and lukewarm.  She blushed a bright red when she noticed  Jasper sitting next to her.

“Thank you ,  sir.” She stuttered . She was  a desk jockey, not a field agent and her physical situational awareness was almost non-existent. 

Jasper nodded in acknowledgement. There was a time and place for terrifying the baby agents, when they still believed they were invincible or were letting their ego get in the way of their jobs. By the time they got to Robertson’s level they had generally been broken out of that habit and when they were going above and beyond it was basic human decency to reward that. Or at the very least caffeinate it.

“Agent Edmonds and his team  have  set down in Hauz Khas forest. Their ETA is fifteen minutes.” Robertson filled him in only once she had drained three quarters of her mug.

For fourteen minutes the tension continued to climb as they sat in silence.  The comm unit in Robertson’s ear whispered to life.  The quiet murmur  the snowflake that started an avalanche. 

“Roger. Stand by.” Agent Rob ertson spoke once they  murmuring  stopped. “Sir, they have eyes on. No activity visual. Do they have a green light to  breach?”

“ Agent Collins do we have satellite surveillance running?” Jasper called before answering her.

“Yes sir. All frequencies.”  A voice on the other side of the room that may or may not have been Collins answered.

“You have a green light.” He nodded at Agent Robertson.

Things moved quickly.  Edmonds team,  coded Sierra by Agent Robertson for the  op,  split up and inched their way up the block. Two going in high and the other four coming in pairs from each end of the street.  Low cloud cover  and pollution diluted the starlight to virtually nothing but  bounced  the city’s  dirty yellow street lamps and other light pollution back ,  painting everything with bright highlight and deep shadow. The conditions gave the team  good cover. Allowing them to move  slightly faster than they normally could in a suburban area.

The six of them had been working together for years and were able to time their arrival at the house almost perfectly.  Sierra 1 and 2 breaching the ground doors simultaneously with Sierra 3 only seconds behind on the roof.  They were able to move through the house with minimal communication, a whispered ‘clear’, ‘ascending’, and ‘descending’ the only thing breaking the eerie silence within the safe house. 

The three sub-teams met on the middle floor. They had found all of  Epsilon’s equipment and the 084, but no lead on where the missing team had gone.

“Orders sir?” Edmonds asked. His voice loud in the  anxious hush of the control room.

“Has there been any change in the readings off the house or 084?” Jasper asked the room. Once or twice they had come across something that had only been activated in the presence of a person, maybe  this was another one.

A chorus of ‘ no’s  echoed each other across the space. 

“Secure the 084 , document the site, and then extract to the  Singapore office.  The science team there will take over analysis.”

“Sir.” Edmonds acknowledged the order.

On the infrared satellite Jasper watched as the  white hot  spot showing the team broke away into six little orange dots and scattered through the building.  He watched as they moved through the building, each dot stopping in a room for long moments before moving on. It took them over an hour to document, pack up the 084 and lock up the safe house. Another team would come back in and either scrub or burn the site depending on what the science team found.

New  Dehli  was nearing midnight when the team crept away from the safe house, all of them exiting over the roof, no need to bring more attention to themselves or the building then necessary.

“Back on the jet. ETA 1615 hours New York time, 0415 hours local time.” Agent  Dordosov’s  Siberian burr came over the line as the small Quin Jet lifted off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want people's opinions on how interested you are on the other operations? Particularly the 084 mystery?


	6. Day 5: At Least Houdini Came Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brain wave followed by a day of nothing doesn't help Jasper's mood.

Jasper was wide awake and staring, unseeing, at the creamy white of his apartment’s ceiling, he had been awake for hours already, trying not to move around too much and disturb Melissa who was sleeping peacefully beside him. His internal clock told him he had another ten minutes before his first alarm went off.  Even with the little sleep the night before and a busy day, it had taken him hours to shut his mind off and, in his dreams, his subconscious had continued to work on the problem.

It hadn’t come up with anything good.

The one high point was that Phil had been able to make contact, which meant as of lunch time yesterday, he was breathing at least. Though with the way Jasper’s luck was going, the fucking boat would disappear into the Bermuda Triangle. At the idle thought, Jasper shot out of bed like he had been stung by the Domina of all bees. The Bermuda Triangle. Stories of things disappearing there had been around for decades. Melissa grumbled and turned over at his hurried exit from their warm bed, but after long years of his scattered sleeping patterns, she didn’t come close to waking up.

In his hurry to don pants and get back into the office, he rammed one shoulder into the bedroom doorway, having to bite back a curse, as he hopped his way into pants and then almost face-planted into the coffee table as he caught a sock on a toe. It wasn’t the most gracefully executed manoeuvre but luckily no one was around to witness the incident and then use it to point and laugh until he got equally good blackmail to stop them.

Settled on the backseat of one of the million or more identical yellow cabs that were the backbone of NYC transport, he had to take a moment to mentally review his exit from the apartment. Yes he locked the door, yes he set the security system, yes he fed the cat, he checked each morning ritual off his mental tally as he worked backwards. Shit, he didn’t set the coffee maker. Melissa was going to kill him.

There wasn’t much to do about it now and at least he had fed the cat.

Handing over more than he should, he slammed the car door closed behind him and was inside the building before the driver had pulled away from the curb, no mean feat in New York.

“Bermuda!” He called as he tried to hurry into Ops 3 while still maintaining his Senior Agent Dignity™. It didn’t really work, but he was more concerned with passing the idea along.

Three sets of confused eyes met his entrance. With no leads except the 084, which had been in the safe hands of the Singaporean Office for more than 12 hours, many of the techs had been shuffled out to other projects. 

“Sir?” Agent Begay asked. He was half hidden by his monitor, only his dark liquid eyes and black glossy hair visible.

“The Bermuda Triangle.” Jasper repeated.

“Sir. Agents Coulson and Barton were through the Triangle yesterday and won’t be going back through it for a few days. Do you think they are going to disappear also?” The man stood up, his voice rising and tightening with apprehension as he jumped to a conclusion that Jasper wasn’t even putting in the same star system as possible.

Jasper waved away that concern. “No.” Everything in him paused for a second before starting again. “At least not really, it is Barton after all.”

The archer’s propensity for finding the most bizarre, which in SHIELD was saying something, trouble was legendary.

“There have been stories about things going missing in the Bermuda Triangle for decades. Are there similar stories in the area the 084 was found? Of people or things disappearing and hopefully reappearing. If there are, is there a pattern? A way of finding out what happened?” Jasper found himself letting his excitement get the better of him a little and his voice was speeding up and rising in pitch. He had to clear his throat and take a breath before he continued. “Pull who you can and start looking into it. Agents Fitzpatrick and Bhamra both speak Hindi and Punjab. You have permission to pull them off their current assignments.”

The three agents were jumping to even before he had finished giving them their orders. The rush of movement was dizzying but over quickly. Agents Begay and Piper had fled the room, assumedly to try and rustle up a research team, and Agent Robertson was already on the phone negotiating with someone for Agent Fitzpatrick to be re-assigned to Ops 3.

Jasper couldn’t remember where the quiet Scotsman was currently working but knew Sarah would prevail. She was just that sort of person. Knowing that if there was anything to find, the team that was being gathered would find it, he quietly slipped out of the room and jumped on the next elevator going in his direction. Coffee and emails were next on his to do list.

= + =

Having checked in electronically with his other two active ops, Jasper locked his door on the outside world and hunkered down for a long day of finishing and filing paperwork, and lurking in the background of Epsilon’s intel team’s network. Keeping a virtual eye on his teams’ progress had been a habit he had formed early in his career, better to already know what your team mates or subordinates were going to come to you with and have an answer before they actually turned up on your doorstep then to be ambushed with the unexpected. If he was a more introspective man, he might consider that this was an off-shoot of his inability to improvise, but he wasn’t, so he didn’t.

At lunch time he didn’t turn his attention away from the report that Singapore had just submitted. Absently he unwrapped the sandwich from his bag and ate at his desk as he sent the incoming information to the people that needed it.

In the time between when he entered his office and receiving the email from Agent Begay that had him leave his office, the sun had crept to its height and was well on its way to falling back into Seth’s domain.

The ops floor buzzed with quiet hope. The slap-shod team clustered around a table with tablets and papers strewn across the surface.

“Sir!” Sarah Robertson hurried across the floor the second he was through the door. “Your idea provided results!”

As he followed the young analyst, he narrowed his eyes at her back. Was she being facetious?

Her wide grin and bright eyes suggested not and was confirmed by her enthusiasm in updating him.

“We found stories of people disappearing in the area approximately every three years and two months. They went missing for a few days and then turned up again, no memory of where they had been. They didn’t even seem to have been aware they had gone anywhere.” She pointed at news articles and graphs and police reports as she talked.

“Other than time frame, is there a pattern in disappearance and reappearance?” He could see multiple maps splashed with highlighter and tight, small hand writing but without taking a closer look couldn’t make out any patterns.

“How long they are gone for seems inverse to how many people are taken. With a group the size of Strike Epsilon we estimate they should be back tomorrow but that is assuming that removing the 084 from the area hasn’t or won’t break that pattern.” Fitzpatrick answered.

“They didn’t reappear in the same place. It’s brilliant actually, Sarah figured it out. They reappeared where they were in their time place, so if it was an hour had passed, they reappeared just under a thousand miles to the West.” Bhamra took over the narrative.

The blonde blushed to the roots of her hair at the admiring looks the team shot her as Bhamra was talking. 

“So, Cliff Notes. Other people have gone missing and returned but we don’t know if taking the 084 will change that.” Jasper looked around at the five people arrayed before him, giving them a chance to correct him. When no one did, he continued. “Ok. Fitzpatrick, Bhamra, Jha return to what you were doing this morning. Robertson, Begay get in contact with Singapore and update them. Also, find out if there are any readings that happened to catch the times other groups have gone missing, atmospheric, satellite, radiographic, anything.”

A chorus of ‘sir’s and ‘yes, sir’s echoed around the group before the analysts scattered.

Glancing at his watch decided Jasper’s next move. Reports could be updated and sent from the Ops room and he could still be home at a decent time to have dinner with Melissa. Hopefully make up for forgetting the coffee this morning.

= + =

Jasper squinted in the searing red, extended summer twilight. The change from the office’s fluorescent monstrosities of light sources to multi-spectrum natural light always hurt Jasper’s eyes. It was why he had pestered R & D to develop better photochromic lenses than he could get at the optometrist. Waiting for his glasses to darken he pulled in a deep breath of air. It felt like the first full lungful he had gotten all day.

With his lenses satisfactorily dark, he began the one and a half-block walk to his subway stop. Even with the press of bodies around him hurrying to and from work, he always enjoyed the walk. Often it was the only time in his day that he could be alone with his thoughts, time to sort everything that had happened during the long day into their appropriate mental boxes.

Dodging around a pair of twenty-somethings decked out in designer yoga gear and allowing their mats to swing wildly into everyone around them, he pulled out his phone. With the shrill ringing of the dial tone in his ear he sent a scowl in the women’s direction and continued on his way. Some people just had no manners.

“Hello.” Melissa’s voice was distracted when she answered, the sound of a busy ward rolling in waves over the line.

She was still in the office and had answered without checking the caller id.

“Mi vida. I’m leaving the office now. Thai for dinner? I can pick an order up from Lime Leaf.” He named her favourite Thai restaurant that was only a block up from their apartment.

“Kee Mao.” He had her attention now.

“With extra chili.” They said together.

He could hear the grin in her voice. Their shared love of absurdly spicy food had first brought them together. 

“I have another hour or so before I can leave work.”

Neither of them worked normal hours, both more committed to their work than a normal working day. Even then Melissa’s schedule was generally more predictable than his.

“Perfect. I’m just about to head into the Subway. See you at home.” He knew he would lose signal in the underground tunnels.

“Love you.” Her good bye came through just before the roar of a lot of people in a small enclosed space hit him like a truck.

He had left the office just in time to step into the height of peak hour traffic. The already warm air became sweltering as he worked his way down the stairs and escalators onto the platform. There was a flow to the movement of the crowd that Jasper appreciated. At times it had both saved his life and condemned a mark, moving with everyone a spy could blend in and get in close without detection just as much as irregular movement disrupted the flow and was met by grumbles and shoves from the people whose path had been interrupted.

The train came quickly and a surge of movement carried him into an overflowing carriage wedged between a young mother trying to keep her two kids close, and an older businessman who was still tapping away at a phone that Jasper knew wouldn’t have reception.

By the time he had navigated the crowds on two different lines and waited in the packed restaurant for his order, which was mercifully speedy in deference to his and Melissa’s constant patronage, he was ready to be in the quiet cool of their apartment. It had been an earlier start after a string of early starts and the day was catching up on him.

He was only in alone in the apartment for a few minutes before he heard the lock on the door turn. Melissa pushed her way through with a shoulder, her arms occupied by groceries and her purse. In her rumpled scrubs and a roughly pulled back riot of curls, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Dropping a quick kiss on her lips, he swept the bags out of her arms and gave her space to unwind from work. They quietly moved around each other before finally settling on the couch, a bowl of chili chicken noodles each and a re-run of a mindless cooking shown playing. In between bites they told each other about their days, a smirking gripe about the lack of coffee this morning led into a discussion of one of her patients. He responded with a stupid memo that HR had sent out, the closest he could come to talking about his day.

The evening passed in familiar routine and easy companionship leaving him more rested than a good night sleep ever would.  Ready to tackle whatever chaos came for him next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have most of the next chapter written so I should have it out on time in two weeks.


	7. Day 6: Reverse Disappearing is Hard on the Back

The next morning, Jasper took the time to eat a bowl of cold cereal and drink a mug of hot coffee at home. There had been no movement on any of the ops overnight and he could afford to head into the office a little later than he normally would.  Across from him at the little, rarely used dining table, Melissa was quietly doing a crossword from the book she replaced every few months.

An email pinged into his inbox. A small flicker of hope lit low in his gut. Maybe Coulson had been able to get in contact again, or even better at this point maybe Epsilon had reappeared. Thumbing into the app, he found a memo on electricity consumption. 

“Are you fucking kidding?” He mumbled as he read through the missive. Office hours? Since when did SHIELD have office hours? And reducing the use of personal coffee makers? Who was writing this? Obviously, someone who had never actually met a SHIELD agent. 

“Everything ok Schatz?” Melissa asked without looking up from her puzzle.

“I was hoping on word from Phil but instead it’s bureaucracy at its stupidest.” He told her.

That got her attention, she liked the other agent. In fact, he was one of the only one of Jasper’s co-workers that she had met and liked, most of them rubbing her the wrong way. “Where’s Phil?”

“Away on business and his phone has been playing up.” He said. She didn’t know exactly what they did but knew they travelled a lot. That was one of her big problems with Jasper’s colleagues, all of them except for Phil just didn’t talk to her, finding it easier to say nothing rather than giving something away. It was why Jasper was in the minority amongst SHIELD agents, dating outside the agency and keeping the relationship alive through the secrets and injuries and lies.

“I’m sure he is fine Jasper. He can look after himself.” She smiled across the table at him. His concern for his friends, even when they didn’t need it, was one of his most endearing qualities. His need to obsess about that concern was not.

“He can, but he’s out with Barton.” Jasper tried to explain why he was more worried than usual.

“They have worked together before haven’t they?” Melissa abandoned her puzzle. She wasn't going to get back to it before she had to leave for work.

“Never just the two of them.” Hasper ran a hand across his head, the sharp prickle of re-growth telling him he had left it a little long since he had last shaved.

“They are always at each other's throats and this much time along with a buffer? It could tip one of them over the edge.”

She smiled benignly at him as she collected their dishes, it was her turn. As she swept past him, she dropped a light kiss on the top of his head. “They will both be fine.” She over emphasised the last word.

He would never admit that his concern extended from Phil to the younger Blonde man she had only met one and even that was only in passing, but it did. He grumbled about him a lot, and Jasper only ever got that worked up about someone he cared about but hadn’t admitted to himself how he felt.

Jasper picked the puzzle book and other bits of detritus that littered the table before heading into the hallway to shrug into his suit jacket and then over coat. She was right, Phil was the best operator Jasper knew and his biggest threats on this mission was an accountant or boredom. Together, Jasper and Melissa, walked the few blocks to the subway, talking about inconsequential nothings. At the station they parted with a kiss, Japer heading West into Manhattan and Melissa East deeper into Queens to the Hospital.

= + =

Jasper was whistling as he worked his way up the building. More than one Senior Agent threw him a questioning side eye, and every Junior Agent skittered away. It served to further improve his mood.

Maria waiting outside his office threatened to tank the endorphin high of a good morning. But she just offered him a cup of coffee and asked for an update on his active operations. She waited patiently as he opened his office. At least she did after he grovelled that it took as long as it took and if she didn’t like it, they could have the meeting in her office. That got her to calm down quickly, she hated working in her office. People could find her there and she always ended up with things being added to her to-do list and not finishing anything.

His inbox was full, as per usual, when he finally got into his office. A quick and dirty sort had it down by a third. There was still more work in those electronic files than any two people could get through in a day. The first email he opened, as Maria settled across from him, was the initial findings from the Singaporean science team. The 084 was a silicon crystal with inclusions from an element that the team couldn’t identify. They wrote that this element had pulled the crystalline structure out of the standard hexagonal structure and into a ditetragonal dipyramidal structure. Jasper had no idea what that meant and told his computer that. 

Maria snorted.

“What?” He grumbled at the top of the of her head.

“You know we don’t need the problems that would come if it ever started answering you. Right?” She snarked, looking up long enough to smirk at him before returning to her paperwork.

He winced at the suggestion of SHIELD’s systems gaining sentience. What made it even worse is that he could see it happening and it wouldn’t even be the weirdest thing to happen around the office in any given week. “Maybe, then, something could explain what the science gremlins are babbling about.”

Maria didn’t have an answer to that and returned to her paperwork. Jasper huffed at the non-response and left the office to Maria’s not so tender care. He apparently had a geologist to hunt down to decode their colleagues work.

It was the right time of day that the labs would be bustling, the night owls just starting to run down and those with a diurnal preference would be getting ready to start their day. He was right, as he passed the garage levels and ground floor, the elevator he had had to himself, began to fill up. Scientists and specialists mixing as they made their ways to SHIELD’s subterranean floors. Discussions of HK54 vs AK74 as compact large capacity rifles mixed with Thompson and Tam’s well known, ongoing, argument about string theory that broke out every time they were in the same room.

R&D 1 was cut in half, Earth Sciences on one side and Physics on the other. Their halves were then split into two main areas, an open plan lab that echoed and always had someone working away and a warren of self-contained labs that they only used to stop contamination or exposure. A little area eh two departments was walled up and held the endless supply of coffee that ran every office in SHIELD.

When Jasper made a grateful escape from an escalating argument about polyester and polystyrene, the Earth Science floor was starting down their daily rabbit hole of research and crazy.

“Agent Sitwell. What brings you to our neck of the woods?” Doctor Andrews ask. Senior Agents normally called whoever they wanted upstairs. They didn’t come down into the labs unless things were going to go absolutely FUBAR.

“Have you seen the report from Singapore yet?” Jasper followed Doctor Andrews’ lead in skipping the niceties.

“I just finished going through it.” Andrews wandered his way away from Jasper. Showing his ingrained knowledge of his domain by how thoughtless it was for him to dodge around tables and people and cupboards that probably hadn’t closed in a decade due to overflowing samples and books and papers.

Jasper had to follow more slowly, carefully picking his way through the chaos that only the Earth Scientists and Engineers allow into their space. Physics was neat in a normal office way. And Chemistry and Biology were meticulous about their spaces, to be fair their labs were also a lot more enclosed and separated from each other, and their work much more likely to explode or grow sentience and try and walk away. All things that a responsible scientist and a SHIELD agent trying to keep their job avoided. The engineers just laughed maniacally when something exploded unexpectedly. The earth scientists were just an absent minded lot. 

Andrews had wended his way through the chaos to his desk in the far corner of the open space. By the time Jasper had caught up, the scientist was elbow deep in shifting drifts of paper. The stacks were so deep that the wood of the desk was invisible. It was entirely possible that the paper never ended and just continued into an alternative paperwork filled reality.

Jasper did not want to find out if it did, it could be someone else’s problem. Triumphant, Andrews emerged from the drifts with a report that was more crumpled then it should be possible to be in such as short time, clutched in an upraised hand.

“Doctor Liu was able to isolate silicon and an unknown element within the 084. They are in a ditetragonal dipyramidal structure. The centrosymmetry is centred around the unknown element with the silicon making up the exterior of the structure. The unknown is extremely heavy. Liu wasn’t able to narrow it down any further because his scanning electron microscope broke.” Andrews summarised the report they had both received. 

The only thing that Jasper understood from within what the geologist said was that a piece of equipment broke.

“And all of that means what, Doctor?” He had better things to do than spend all day trying to coax a PhD into speaking English.

“That the 084 is sort of quartz but not and more research needs to be done.” Andrews said.

“So basically, nothing we didn’t already know?”

Andrews shrugged as if to say ‘that’s the life of a scientist, what can you do?’ “Basically.” He agreed.

“And I came all the way down here and you repeated the incomprehensible jargon from the report to me why?” Jasper grumbled, annoyance a deep river of make sure your answer is up to par.

“I didn’t ask you to?” Andrews offered, completely unheeding of the warning in the Senior Agent’s voice.

“Let me know when you know more.” Jasper bit out. He turned sharply on his heel and left. Annoyance at the lack of progress straightening his spine extending his stride unnaturally. He was officially stalking and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Scientists scattered and the single occupant of the elevator that opened for him scrambled out after one look even though, according to the lit button, they had another three floors until they reached their destination.

So much for the good mood from that morning.

The uncontrolled anger had been reigned back in on the sixteen floor trip from the sub-basement 4 and Ops 2. If he went straight back to his envelop of an office that his boss was still taking up more than her fair share of, he would probably lose it. Checking in on his teams and then maybe seeing who was willing to get in the ring with him for a few rounds would hopefully restore some of his lost good mood.

For two hours he avoided going back to his office. None of his teams had anything to important report, Bravo were still watching Soskin move between home and work and a strip club, Epsilon didn’t have anything beyond the useless science report, and Kardel was had gotten another thirty second voicemail on the drop box, this time from Barton. According to the sniper they were on St Kitts and everything was amazeballs! Annoyingly that was the word he used, amazeballs! With the exclamation point. How anyone thought Barton was mature enough to handle any sort of weapon was beyond Jasper. 

He had better luck in the gym. Junior Agent Triplett had just started his work out and agreed to go a few rounds. The kid was a champion MMA fighter and his slightly more regimented style was a good foil for Jasper’s own more dirty ‘kick them in the nuts at the earliest opportunity’ style.

Unable to avoid it any longer, he trooped back up to his office. The only changes from when he had left hours earlier, was a new pot of coffee had been brewed and almost drunk and Maria’s ‘to do’ pile was now out weighted by her ‘done’ pile.

“Can you go haunt someone else’s office now?” He pretended to grumble. He didn’t actually mind having her there. With Phil away on his Carribean jaunt and Shannon in Europe or maybe North Africa, the only other one of their group in town at the moment was Felix and the two men weren’t close, they just happened to have friends in common. All up, spending a day with Maria glowering in his visitor chairs wasn’t the worst option for fulfilling his weekly socialisation requirements.

“No. Felix has that joint meeting tomorrow with DOD and CIA.” She didn’t have to look up to know that Jasper’s whole body cringed. “Exactly.” 

The desk phones started ringing, it’s shrill tone ear-piercing.

Two steps had him from the door to his desk, it was a tiny office. “Sitwell.” He didn’t bother with niceties on his work phones, Melissa or his friends would have called on his personal mobile and caller id would dictate how he answered that. 

Sarah Robertson’s voice was on the other end. “Their back.” He hung up without answering and was back out the door before the handset had finished settling into place after he threw it at the cradle.

“Jasper?” Maria called from behind him.

“Can you lock up? Epsilon are back.” He shouted behind him, not waiting for her response.

Ops 3 was in uproar when he skidded in.

“Robertson, report!” He demanded.

“The whole team, appeared on the North-East border of the Al Khanafah Wildlife Sanctuary Saudi Arabia. Confirmed by GPS tracker and infrared satellite” Even as she spoke she was pulling up maps and the satellite images. “A ‘jet and med team are being scrambled from Jerusalem. Flight time is estimated at less than 15 minutes and they should be in the air in 10.” She pulled up the comm-link with the commander in Israel.

“Shalom, Jasper. Extraction and medical will be with your people soon.” Agent Fetter’s smiling face filled the monitor in front of Jasper. He was standing so close to the camera that he was blurry teeth and pixelated smile lines.

Jasper was listening to the air traffic control chatter as the jet lifted off when Maria slipped into the room, unnoticed by everyone but Jasper.

The room settled into a brittle tension. They had only been able to get infrared and gps trackers on the team, what they physical and mental states were was still completely up in the air. All that any of them could do in the New York office was wait. Wait and listen as another team sped towards their people.

A video flickered into life on a blank screen on the wall. All SHIELD Quinjets had multiple cameras mounted, the pick-up team had just ported their feed through to HQ. The stabilised video showed the four men standing out starkly in their black gear against the red dunes. They hadn’t spotted the ‘jet yet.  The group stood huddled together close to where they had appeared. Footsteps in the sand showing two of them had climbed to the top of a nearby sand dune, the tallest point in their vicinity, and where they had slid their way back down.

The approaching aircraft began stirring the soft, dry sand, drawing their attention. As properly trained SHIELD Agents, their reaction was to break out of their close huddle, take up defensive positions and try and shield their eyes from the localised dust storm that was being kicked up by the engines. It could safely be assumed that it was a SHIELD plane approaching them, what with it being invisible, but it was better to be safe than sorry and if they hadn’t Jasper probably would have busted them all down a level and sent them for remedial ‘what the fuck were you thinking?’ training. 

They looked ok. It wasn’t enough for the room to start breathing again, just enough for the tension to take a single, shuffling step back.

They waited as the jet set down and the team of Agents and Medics swarmed down the ramp and engulfed the members of Epsilon. 

“No injuries or abnormal readings. We are clearing them for return to base.” Doctor Atiyeh finally reported.

“Confirm return to base approved. See you soon away team.” Agent Fetter responded.

Collectively the ops rooms on two continents released their breath. Epsilon weren’t out of the woods yet, but they were at least on their way home. 


	8. Day 7: The Rainforest Thanks SHIELD for Going Green

With Epsilon back on planet Earth, or in this realm of existence, or back in this time stream, Jasper’s stress level returned to base-line ‘things aren’t great but they are mostly in control, maybe’ levels. Overnight reports had trickled in from the normal assemblage of medics and doctors and psychologists. The report from a physicist was more unusual. Having quickly skimmed the medical reports for highlights, no signs of injury or illness but none of the members of the team remembered anything between being swept up in India and being deposited, two days and change later, in Saudi Arabia. 

The longest report was from the physicist, he had detected trace amounts of an unknown chemical signature that had been forwarded to the science team in Singapore who were still working on the 084. He had found that whatever the chemical was it was producing tiny amounts of radiation and was advising the continuation of the standard isolation that the team had been placed in. Until either the chemical dissipated or they were able to identify it and determine whether they needed to be concerned about it.

It wasn’t the most reassuring report Jasper had ever read about a recovered team, but any time the lost team came back not in body bags he counted it as a win.

Jasper sent through an approval for the extended isolation and then drafted a carefully worded email to Maria. She wasn’t going to be happy that a STRIKE team was going to be out of commission for  an indeterminate amount of time when things in Europe were continuing to quickly slide from ‘mildly concerning’ to ‘what the fuck just happened’ From what he was hearing, the slow moving surveillance of Soskin was the quietest of the current ops in that part of the world. 

An email down to Kardel got a quick reply. Nothing so far, but passengers were only going to be disembarking as she wrote. He sent back what he knew was a pointless ‘let me know’ request, Kardel had been on top of everything and kept him appropriately informed of any and all updates.  But he had to send the reminder anyway, paper trails and all that.

Of more concern was an update from Agent Beulke. Bravo were reporting an upswing in movement around Soskin’s impromptu lab. Instant karma, he cringed at himself, he knew better than even  _ thinking _ that an op was quiet. It was the best way to ensure that shit hit the fan in a fireworks display worthy of fourth of July and Eurovision combined.

Beulke thought that Soskin might be preparing to move the operation. If he did it might be years before they tracked him down again. Jasper powered through shutting down and locking up his office. It looked like Ops 2 was going to be his problem child today.

Beulke, Collins and Yu were in hard at work when he arrived. The room almost dead silent as they each ran their own systems. Beulke’s voice the only thing breaking the silence, murmuring into his comm. Jasper assumed he was talking to someone on Bravo.

“Collins. Where are we at?”

“Soskin has taken over the southern of three warehouses at the Kolektor compound in the Industrial Zone North. It has easy access to the Dunav-Tisa-Dunav canal and Bulevar Evrope. Both of them are major thoroughfares for the city. Bravo can’t effectively surround the building. The building does have a self-contained ventilation system, the possibility of pumping in some sort of gaseous anesthetic.” Agent Collins rattled off, glancing quickly up at Jasper and then back at his terminal as he talked. His fingers hardly halting in their lightning speeds.

There were a couple of things wrong with that. “What gas? Where are they getting it? And how big is the building? That would be a lot of gas.” Jasper frowned down at the younger agent.

That finally got him to stop typing. “I, um. I’m not sure.” He stuttered.

Jasper raised a single eyebrow in condemnation. It wasn’t as effective as Maria’s or Fury’s one eyed, unblinking stare, but it did its job.

“Agent Beulke is working on it sir.” Collins gestured slightly towards where the ops intelligence team lead was still murmuring away.

Why Collins hadn’t referred Jasper to Beulke in the first place rather than wasting both of their time, he didn’t know. Either way he was going to have to talk to the fiercely whispering agent and Collins had just delayed the inevitable.

“Beulke.” He barked, secretly smirking at making the other man jerk and type a few characters of nonsense.

“Sir.” Oddly, Beulke tried to stand up to greet him but got tangled in a wire and ended up half standing, crouched over the workstation.

“Sit down before you hurt yourself Agent. How’s Bravo going?” He couldn’t stop the smirk from creeping the tiniest bit onto his face.

“Agent Piper was able to infiltrate the warehouse last night local time and determine that the building had been divided in two. A lab area on one side, and a warren of cells. At last report there were three prisoners in the cells in various states from mostly healthy to hanging on by a thread.” As he talked, he settled back into his seat. Having a proper, substantive report to give was helping his nerves at talking to a Senior Agent. “The team has counted seven people, including Soskin, moving between the warehouse and a boat on the canal.” 

“Has a plan been worked out?” Jasper took the seat next to Beulke.

“Next time at least three of them are outside, Piper and Maliqi will put them down with tranquilizers. Once they are down, Piper and Maliqi will take one end of the building and Tarifa and Hutmann the other.” Beulke pointed at the areas of interest on a satellite image of the compound in question.

“Sounds good. You have a go when the opportunity presents itself.” He settled into the seat and pulled out his tablet. He was willing to let the team take lead, but wasn’t confident enough in Beulke to leave them alone to do it. Not when Soskin had proven himself very capable of disappearing off the face of the earth. If he slipped past them again, who knew when they would get another chance and if that chance would come before he was able to perfect the super soldier system he had been working towards for so long.

The chance came sooner than any of them would have guessed. Jasper was only part way through responding to the first email in his inbox when the low level hum from the comms suddenly jumped up a few decibels. 

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five.” Maliqi’s softly accented voice counted off bad guys. “We have a go.”

Five soft expulsions of air were just caught by the sensitive microphones in Piper and Maliqi’s comms. The thud of bad guys meeting pavement with prejudice was too far away to be transmitted back to base, but the intel team watched it happen on the live satellite feed Yu had spent the last hour nudging into place.

The overlaid GPS signals of their team members moved from their previously stationary hiding places even as the final bad guy was still crumpling. The two closest to the waterway, shifted quickly between the five downed men, and then shot straight for the door into the building.

The second the four person team moved into the building. Their signals blinked out.

“Shit.Cao ni ma. Hlaba. Marete.” Yu’s multilingual swearing filled the room, undercut by her furious typing. “HA! Popalsya, sookin syn.” Her global adventures in curse words seemed to work for her though. The signals blinking back into existence.

In the ten or so seconds the team had been off the radar they had covered a lot of ground. At this point Jasper could right a fucken’ PhD on being DONE with teams dropping off the map between all three of his active ops having problems with communication. He was tempted to ask the physicists if there was an alignment of planets or some shit ‘cause it was getting ridiculous. Beulke was back to murmuring with the team on the ground, Yu was still typing madly and muttering profanities in various languages, from the ones he recognised he thought she was going geographically through her lexicon, and Collins was on the phone speaking to someone in what might have been Croatian if Jasper wasn’t wrong. The other agent was liasing with the locals, keeping the lid on the operation before anything went wrong, just in case.

The time from the initial ‘go’ to the final ‘all clear’ flew by like the sudden dive bomb of a hunting hawk, time moving lazily across the sky one second and them almost disappearing in a burst of energy and then appearing, victorious moments later. It was ten minutes of movement and thought and tension that you couldn’t really remember clearly after the fact.

With the infiltration handled mostly cleanly, and the locals coming in to help with the little bit of clean up, Jasper left them to it after asking for a separate report from Yu on the loss of comms. SHIELD tech should have gotten through any physical shielding and if it had been a cyber attack they needed to know what they needed to shore up so it didn’t happen again.

A new set of emails were waiting for him. With a fresh pot of coffee and his door locked, he allowed himself to get lost in the information for the rest of the day. Reports from Singapore and Israel that boiled down to ‘we’re still working on it’. A quick report, properly formatted, from Kardel to say that Coulson had left another message on the dead drop, it was the longest one yet. A reminder that the electronics purchasing invoice from Hong Kong needed to be reviewed. Kardel had added a note that she was unsure of the meaning of the message and had added links to all missions in or around Hong Kong that Agent Coulson had been a part of or tangentially connected to. 

It was not a short list.

Jasper didn’t need to list to know what Phil was talking about. It wasn’t a mission at all or at least it hadn’t started as one. He was referring to the Jasper’s honeymoon. Melissa and he had spent a week in the island city and had planned on being there another few days until he had stumbled an illegal operation to smuggle endangered birds through the port and started a turf war. He had had to give himself a pretty bad case of food poisoning and convince her to go home early.

So either someone was doing something with electronic birds, attaching electronics too birds, smuggling electronics, or smuggling electronic birds. Of the four options Jasper figured smuggling electronics was the most likely answer, at least the only answer that Phil would break the call in script to report. He broke the options down in a report for Maria, with the report from the Hong Kong police about the referenced blackmarket ring attached, and his own suppositions and conclusions. It took him just over nine pages to say he thought Phil and Barton had stumbled across a smuggling ring but also it could be robot parrots.

With the report sent, he decided to call it a day. The clean-up and initial interrogation of Soskin and his cronies would take a few days, the teams working on the mystery of the disappearing and reappearing STRIKE team were still wading through a mountain of data that they didn’t even understand, and Phil and Barton were going to have to deal with their accountant and smuggling ring on their own, at least until they got back to New York in five days.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Cao ni ma: Chinese for ‘motherfucker’
> 
> Hlaba: Zulu for ‘fuck’
> 
> Marete: Sotho for ‘balls’
> 
> Popalsya, sookin syn: Russion for ‘Got you, son of a bitch’
> 
> These are all super rough and I don’t speak any of these languages.


	9. Day 8: Contrar to Popular Belief, Reports make the World Go Round not Money

With no midnight phone calls or early morning brain waves, Jasper was able to enjoy the third quiet, leisurely start to his day in a row. Fully caffeinated and relaxed before getting to SHIELD was unnerving for the security staff. His smile had them looking for the snap inspection that was sure to follow that expression for the rest of the day. When it didn’t eventuate they became even more nervous than they had started. Agent Sitwell hadn’t mastered the cool detachment of Agent Coulson, about whom it was rumoured that only Agent Romanov could discern an expression that he didn’t want known, nor the constantly simmering wrath of Deputy Director Hill, who was as likely to cut a team’s caffeine supply as smile at them, which is to say not at all.

Bravo, with the help of Serbian and Interpol staff, had had a productive night. A full report on their interrogations had several leads on who Soskin had been intending to sell the super soldier serum to once it had been finished. The Intel was so useful that it took Jasper a full hour, and a whole pot of coffee, to link all of the relevant operations into the reports. As a backstop to make sure had hadn’t missed anyone, he also sent a shortened copy of the report to all Senior Agents. 

The science report was more preliminary, SHIELD wasn’t willing to let the locals handle the lab on their own, meaning clean up and documentation had been delayed until a forensic team from London could be scrambled.  They had arrived at sunset local time and spent half the night collecting samples and running tests on the three people rescued from the labs. The team had called it a night at 2 am their time, just as Jasper had been leaving for the night, and picked it back up at 9am. Since then they had narrowed down the type of radiation they had been testing to the different UV wavelengths. The chemists were still working on the serum. 

Jasper would never be comfortable with SHIELD’s naming conventions for people found in calling them subjects 1, 2, and 3. He preferred to give them names, using their own put everyone at risk. Subject 1 he mentally renamed Lucky because that is what he appeared to be, subject 2 he nicknamed Rory after DC’s Heatwave, Coulson wasn’t the only nerd at SHIELD he was just the worst at hiding it which Jasper found endlessly ironic, and subject 3 was Sleepy for obvious reasons.

The most interesting report was from the doctors looking after the prisoners. The healthiest of the three, subject 1 or ‘Lucky’, had only undergone one treatment, and had been a little help with identifying the roles of the people Bravo had arrested, but not much else. As far as the doctors could tell, he had come through his experience intact and after a few more days of observation would probably let him go. That’s not to say that SHIELD wouldn’t keep an eye on him, probably for the rest of his life, because they would, they just didn’t need to be standing over him in a hospital to do it.

The other two had been held and subjected to a lot more. When Bravo, with the help of a couple of ambulance crews had pulled the three men from the warehouse, the worst of them had been catatonic and the EMSs didn’t think he, subject 3 forever enshrined as ‘Sleepy’ in Jasper’s head, would survive the transfer to hospital and the third man, subject 2 ‘Rory’, was slipping in and out of consciousness and running a 115 degree fever even with the help of the cool interior. The medics threw every ice pack they had, and a random package of peas they found in the lab’s freezer on the man and inserted so many ivs he looked more like a B-grad 80’s sci-fi alien then a person.

The interesting part, and now so classified everyone but the SHIELD doctors had been moved off the whole floor of the hospital, was that by the time the SHIELD doctors had arrived, the man’s temperature had dropped to 95 and he had woken up. As far as the doctors could tell other than now being on the edge of hypothermia instead of in the grips of severe hyperpyrexia, the man was absolutely fine.

The doctor had been surprised to find brainwaves in Sleepy. Everything at the lab suggested he had been in a coma for a while, kept alive by a saline drip and not much else. The electrical waves they had detected were unlike anything they had seen. Doctor Grenfell described cortical activity that shouldn’t have been present. The Nu-complexes were completely unknown to him. In a separate email, he asked for permission to forward the results to a Neuroscientist he knew in Montreal studying coma patients. Jasper sat on the request while working through everything else that had come in from Europe, making sure nothing about Sleepy or his condition could be considered the half impression left by classified on memory foam. As close to reassured that it wouldn’t be he gave the go ahead to share the data with a strict reminder to redact whatever he sent to his friend.

It was a long morning and early afternoon of wading through reports heavy with medico- and techno-jargon that had Jasper mainlining coffee and left him with a pounding headache. Technical missions were not his favourite, he much preferred the human-int operations that allowed him to use the psych degree he had squirrelled away somewhere.

The report from Singapore/Israel was much less migraine inducing but a lot less helpful. The wordy document summed up to two collective science teams running into a brick wall, repeatedly. The only good thing was a bright lab tech in Singapore had sent a single page summery coming to that conclusion so that Jasper didn’t have to.

Overall, he wanted to be grumpy about the headache that had started playing wadaiko drums behind his eyes. But he couldn’t, both teams had met their objectives, even if in a more than slightly roundabout way, and hadn’t come to any lasting harm, as far as they could tell. That always marked a day down as good in his books, no matter what state he was in by the end of it.

With the initial flow of information dealt with, Jasper locked up his office and headed out for a late lunch, the siren call of ‘fresh air’ and dumplings from the Yumpling food truck a few blocks away. He normally wouldn’t venture that far in the middle of the work day, but there was nothing pressing that needed him back quickly.

Taking the back stairs he was away without running into anyone, the sunlight, breeze, and people doing wonders to suck some of the energy out of the drummers. A slow stroll there and back, with a stop in a building between for a cold brewed coffee, had his head back to manageable the idea of facing the rest of what, if he wasn’t superstitious, he would term a quiet afternoon.

Only a single email was waiting for him.  Kardel’s name in the sender box gave him a pretty good idea of what it would contain, at worst a ‘no news’, at best a second cryptic message from Phil.

It didn’t contain either.

It was another intercepted email from the cruise liner to its parent company. This time from the Ship’s doctor.

 

**\- - -**

**Shore Excursion Accident**

**Dr. L J Hooker** [ **lawrence.hooker@harmoniacruising.com** ](mailto:lawrence.hooker@harmoniacruising.com)

3:23 PM

To: Mr Glenn Hendricks

Good Afternoon Mr Hendricks,

During the shore excursion on St. Maarten, Dutch Antilles, a guest C. Barton, was injured during an accident involving a jet ski hired from a local shop. He was initially taken to the St. Maarten Medical Centre where he was seen and treated for several injuries. 

He has been passed into my care.

Regards,

Dr Hooker

\- - -

“Fuckin’ Barton.” He sighed as he read the forwarded email. Only the chaotic archer would get injured in something as stupid as a jet skiing accident while on an infiltrate and observe mission. If there wasn’t the threat of injury from the people he was going up against, without fail he found it somewhere else.

The medical floor at HQ had an ‘‘n’ days since last Barton escape’ sign for god’s sake.

A separate document was attached to the email Kardel had sent. She had gotten into the St Maarten Medical Centre database and pulled the x-rays, test results, and right up. He shot a copy to Dr Silva in medical to add to Barton’s file and put him on the books for when he returned before diving in himself. The bulk of the medical tests were the x-rays, but they had done a blood test which had come back clear. Lucky for Barton, if had been drunk on mission there would have been hell to pay. The x-rays were more concerning. A broken nose and arm were the worst of it. Although Dr Hofkes pointed out in his breakdown that it was more accurately a re-broken nose as it appeared as though there had been a previous injury. He also noted a pattern of extensive healed injuries.

Jasper was impressed, most of those healed breaks had been helped along by some pretty nifty SHIELD tech that encouraged faster and better bone re-growth and were practically invisible on a standard x-ray unless you knew where to look. The doc had a good eye.

Weirdly for an accident that happened on water, he had a significant number of burns. All of them were first degree, except for a single second degree along his left calf. It painted an interesting picture when combined with an article from St Maarten’s online newspaper about a jet ski _exploding_ on one of the tourist beaches.

0-Barton had been on the machine when it went up in flames.

Nothing in the news or the reports about how it happened, but with the archer involved it was probably just bad luck. Regardless of what caused the accident, there wasn’t much they could  do about it from here and it was far from the worst accidental injury Clint had suffered while on mission and none of the others had put him out of action. Neither would this one.

“He got himself blown up?” Maria asked rhetorically as she came through his door.

Jasper ignored her in favour of frowning at his door, he had locked that.

“Only Barton. How Phil has never acted on any of his threats, I’ll never know.”  She slumped into the seat across from him.

“What?” That finally got Jasper’s attention. “He was always following through on his threats. Remember last month? He kept getting distracted from doing his paperwork by shiny things, so filled Barton’s desk to give him shiny things to look at while doing it. It took him two weeks to get rid of it all.” Unthinkingly, Jasper filled a second coffee cup as he talked. Handing it over when he had finished.

“Ok, fine. I’ll give you that one. But the serious threats, throwing him out of a moving car in Cape Town, or letting him drown in Scotland. He never goes through with those ones, and neither does Barton. They annoy the shit out of each other and us, but don’t actually hurt each other.” Maria gratefully took the mug, it had been a long day, and used it to gesture with, sipping between gestures.

“Hu.” Jasper sat back, letting his mind run back over the years that he had been watching the two men interact. “It’s still annoying.” He finally decided.

“Yep.” She agreed easily. Placing her empty mup on the corner of his desk, she stood. “Let me know if there are any other updates.” And she was gone as quickly as she had appeared. 

Alone again, and with his three active ops up to date, he lost himself in intel reports and mission proposals for the rest of the day. It wasn’t the most exciting day, but it was fruitful, by the time he was leaving a little later than 7, he had found three links between ongoing missions that had been missed, and had the mission plans for two other ops pretty well outlined with only the secondary contingencies left to do. 

After a mostly quiet day, he spent a quiet night at home. Relaxing on the couch with Melissa and homemade Fajitas. Overall, a good day.


	10. Day 9: The Slow Grind, the Fine Grind, and an Ax to Grind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's a little short this week.

Jasper slowly swam to consciousness. With his current missions in a holding pattern, there wasn’t much to stress about in the middle of the night. It was a rare night that some niggling bit of worry didn’t wake him up at three in the morning. Melissa was a warm weight next to him and Max, their six year old tabby, another warm spot at the end of the mattress. It was his favourite way to wake up. 

The alarm clock was blinking a red, 0558 on the bedside table next to him. The annoying beep would go off in two minutes. He twisted quickly to turn it off. Mel had another few hours before she had to be up, she was rostered onto the second shift at the hospital for the next week, and while she could turn over and go back to sleep if his alarm woke her, better that she didn’t have to.

With a tug of reluctance pulling at his gut, he slipped from the bed. For the next two weeks, they were on off-set rosters and would hardly see each other. It was his least favourite time of the month. Max followed him out of the bedroom. Pouncing on his heels and jumping out from various hiding places to tap at his calves before running away again. It was their quiet morning routine.

Jasper moved around the apartment, filling Max’s food bowl, which the cat abandoned him for, filling his coffee mug and a thermos and then resetting the machine for Melissa. A quick shower and shave. A bagel toasted. He walked out the door with the bagel in one hand and a thermos in the other at 0630. The same routine he had been following every work day that he wasn’t on mission or woken by an emergency, for years. Efficient, practiced, quick.

= + =

He could pick which agents were working on active ops as he entered the large office building. He had started it as a game when he first started with the agency. Trying to spot the tell-tale little signs, active ops were harried looking and hurrying in past security, over caffeinated and under slept, the 9-5 people wandered in a few hours later, well rested and sometimes fresh from the gym, lab rats were always distracted. It had started as a way to better his observational skills, now it was a way to pass the time as he waited for the elevator. Beside him a group of agents abandoned the wait for the elevator in favour of the stairs. Racing up the dimly let vertical corridor. Active op that was going pear shaped, quickly.

Without the pressing worry of an op going sideways, Jasper took the more sedate option of the lifts. He did stop-off on the ops floors first though. Checking up on his people in person. Bravo and their continuing interrogation of Soskin and his men, was his first stop. Beulke was the only one in the room when he stepped in. The younger Agent was reclined in his chair, watching something on the computer monitor intently but without taking notes, or doing anything other than watching. At the sound of the door sliding closed with a snick behind Jasper, the Junior Agent looked up.

“Agent Sitwell. Sir” He lent forward to tap at the keyboard.

“Anything to report?” 

On rounding the workstation, Jasper could see what Beulke was watching. It was the interrogation of Soskin, the image paused on the bear of a man sitting alone at a bare metal table, making a wide gesture with one hand.

“An update came in about an hour ago from the Docs in Serbia. No change on Subject 1, he is still doing well. Doc thinks he can probably go home tomorrow. Subject 2 is awake, but his temperature hasn’t stabilised, swinging from 95 to 110, taking an hour or so to rise or fall. It hasn’t gone back up to 110 and the swings are slightly smaller each time. They think in the next 48 hours he will stabilise. Subject 3 is still in a coma, but a,” He paused to check something scribbled on the pad next to his computer. “Doctor Simard has received the reports and is looking them over.” Beulke rattled off.

Jasper was glad to see that the younger agent had settled in a little. That he had a better grip on things than he had went the op started. He did wonder if it was a recurring problem though. An agent that took more than a week to get comfortable with an op wasn’t much use. An agent that took more than an hour to get comfortable with an op wasn’t much use.

“Anything in the interrogations?” He nodded at the paused video.

“No. Or well, yes. Nothing explicit. But there was something he said. Or how he said it. I don’t know, I’m trying to find what it was.” He scrubbed a hand across his face tiredly. How long had he been at it? The three half drunk and fully cold coffee mugs suggested he had been there a while already.

“What, what was?” Jasper cut in, trying to get him back on track.

“I think he was working with a partner. Or partners. Not sure. The financials don’t quite make sense and I can’t find anything definitive, but he cut himself off. Reworded an answer.” He shrugged at the screen, staring at the un-moving image.

“Ok. Get together with Agent Lewis in Forensics, her specialty is in accounting. He had all the scientific help he could want on site. If he is hiding someone it’s probably financial. See if together you can find whatever struck you. I’ll get Interpol and the Serbian police to expedite the crime scene evidence.”

Beulke locked down his computer and followed Jasper out the door, thanking him for believing his gut.

“You wouldn’t be an Agent if you didn’t have the intelligence and instincts for it. If you think you see something, or just have a hunch, tell someone. We can’t do anything if people aren’t doing their jobs.”

They split at the elevators, Jasper ducking into the stairwell to go up a floor, and Beulke waiting for an elevator to take him up the six floors to where HR and Accounting had their offices just below the Senior Agents. 

Ops 3 was only marginally busier than Ops 2. Agent Robertson had again been joined by the IT tech, Felicity, the two women were talking rapidly as cups of coffee were waved around to emphasis a particular point or argument. Listening to them, Jasper couldn’t figure out how they were hearing each other, talking over each other but answering a question before it had been fully asked.

“Good morning Agents. Anything happening?” He inadvertently made them both jump, Felicity skipping sideways a step when coffee sloshed over the side of the mug. Twisting slightly to try and stop it from falling on her pale pink skirt. “Sorry.” He drawled, unapologetic.

“Good morning Agent Sitwell.” They both responded. The blonde tech’s words were slightly mumbled as the meat at the bottom of her thumb was shoved into her mouth to soothe the slight burn that she hadn’t been able to avoid.

“There might be something. A few tests came in last night and the atomic traits were similar to a theoretical element that a physicist here at SHIELD wrote about before joining the Agency.” Agent Robertson pulled an academic journal off her desk and handed it to Jasper, little colour tabs marking the start of the article she was talking about. Jasper flipped it open but figured out within the first paragraph that it was well beyond his ability to understand. “Everyone wrote it off as fantasy. Felicity recognised the posited traits and pointed it out.”

The blonde blushed around her hand.

“I’ve put in a request to talk to Dr. Hall.” Agent Robertson talked over Felicity’s blushing.

“Very good. If they try and fight you on it let me know.” Jasper also ignored the blushing blonde.

Leaving the two women behind, he took the stairs up two flights to Ops 5. He didn’t expect Kardel to have another update on Phil and Barton, it was a sailing day, but better safe than sorry.

= + =

By the time he was leaving for the night, Beulke had disappeared into the Forensic Accounting team’s office and not re-appeared, Robertson had an appointment to talk to her physicist in the morning, Kardel had spent all day listening to silent channels and working on her Master’s thesis on alternative communication methods, and Jasper had gotten a metric tonne of paperwork done. All in all, a decent, if generally boring, day’s work.

The sun was already well down when he slipped out of the glass revolving doors on the ground floor of SHIELD HQ. With Melissa working most of the night, there was nothing to compel him to get home at a reasonable hour. If any of his friends had been available, he would probably have cajoled one of them into going to grab a drink, but they were all busy or on an op. Other had previously suggested going to get a drink on his own, take in a game, but the idea of drinking alone had never appealed to him and he didn’t follow any sports enough to bother going to a bar and having to deal with drunk civilians.

He folded his jacket over his hand and briefcase and began wandering in the general direction of the subway. There were leftovers and Max waiting for him at home.


	11. Day 10: Somebody dies and somebody else is About to.

Jasper was halfway between his apartment and his subway station the next morning when his cell phone rang. If whoever was calling had called 30 seconds later, he would have been underground and out of service range. Instead he had to stop and answer the call, he was going to miss his train. Muttering to himself, he dug the annoying thing out of his briefcase, picking it up just before it went to voicemail.

“Good Evening Agent Sitwell, sorry to be calling so late.” It was Agent Beulke and he was buzzing harder than Jasper had ever heard him buzz before.

Jasper eyed the bright sunshine above him and the early morning bustle of people flowing into the subway station a few feet further down the block.

“Agent, it’s 7 am, not 7 pm. What’s going on?”

“Oh.” The phone line was echoing silence for a second. “Right. Sorry. Agent Lewis and I have been going through Soskin’s financials. We found…” A scuffle broke out on the other end of the phone, cutting the Junior off.

_ “Is that a secured line? Is it? No! It’s! Not! Ask him to come in.”  _

To Jasper, the soft thumps that accompanied some of the words sounded suspiciously like a soft-cover book hitting an arm. Hard. Fiona Lewis’ penchant for emotional displays that turned physical was still going strong. They continued to argue about informational security as they fought for control of the phone.

After listening to them for a minute, he hung up. Apparently a new partnership had been born overnight and by the sounds of it they might have stopped arguing by the time he got to the office. Rejoining the flow of people, he was carried down the stairs and into the Manhattan bound train, making it just before the doors clattered closed.

= + =

He was right. Pushing through into the paper and whiteboard strewn office, the sound of Beulke and Lewis bickering overtook the sound of the full coffee room down the hall. He wasn’t completely sure that they realised he wasn’t on the phone any more.

“The paper couldn’t have just disappeared. Unless it got eaten by the black hole that is your desk. How do you find anything?!” Beulke was grumbling, loudly, as he sorted through stacks of wobbly papers, taking papers from one stack and slapping them violently onto another in what Jasper assumed was some sort of order but just looked like a bird shifting identical sticks from one side of a nest to another.

Across the room, Lewis flipper her hair over her shoulder and muttered back. “Oh, yes because you are the epitome of organised! Look at the wonderful calligraphy that you have adorned my whiteboards with. Why, I believe that might be Sanskrit on that one.” She stood back and pretended to admire a section of numbers and scribbles. “No! I was mistaken, it is Linear B!” She declared.

“What did you find?” Jasper broke into the argument that looked like it wasn’t going to wrap up any time soon.

They both spun at the sound of his voice. Beulke causing a paper avalanche and Lewis knocking over a whiteboard.

“SIR! Yes! Come in. Sorry.” Lewis hurried to gather up the papers that Beulke had sent everywhere, and Beulke moved to pick up the whiteboard.

Jasper bet himself they would either be married or have killed each other in a grisly double murder within a year.

They hustled him into a chair and stood in front of him shoulder to shoulder. Their stance had him feeling like a middle school principal faced with two kids who had been pulling each other’s pigtails. The feeling made him itch.

“We linked Soskin to a Mr Nikolai Sokolov.” Beulke pointed at a black and white photo they had taped to a different whiteboard than the one Lewis had knocked over.

“He is a Russian national. On paper he works for Sankt-Peterburga Credit.” Lewis took over.

“Which is mostly a front. The GRU uses it to launder and move money.”

“Mr Sokolov is the GRU’s inside man.”

“We have been able to trace money and other exchanges back to him and  _ through _ him to a couple of teams or projects. One in particular stood out.”

“The other unit is in the city of Murmansk.”

“We don’t know exactly what they are doing there, but we think Soskin is selling his knock-off serum.”

The two agents passed the narrative back and forth. Trading off as the other stopped to find the financial records that supported their theory, or a map to show the area in Northern Russia they were talking about.

As they finished, Jasper rocketed out of the chair he had been corralled into, swept up the papers they had been dropping in his lap and bolted from the room. Calling over his shoulder for them to follow even as he was already out of the door.

They caught up with him just as he pushed into the stairwell. HR and accounting were one floor below Jasper’s office, which was one below Maria’s. Waiting for the elevator, even with his override, would take longer than just pelting up the concrete stairs.

Their footfalls echoed oddly, the click of Agent Lewis’ heels sang out in counterpoint to the hard soles of Beulke’s business shoes, while Jasper’s own almost soundless rubber soles shushed under them both as he outpaced them.

For once Maria was actually in her office. Granted she had to door closed and locked, but that only slowed him down. It didn’t stop him.

“Maria!” He had to stop and gasp for a second.

She just raised an eyebrow in judgement. Which he absolutely deserved. He was the worst for remembering to go to the gym when his gym buddies, Phil and Sharon, were out of town. It was just so boring. Running in place and staring at a grey wall. Lifting weights staring at a different grey wall. It wasn’t his definition of fun.

“Yes Jasper.” She asked, her voice convincingly even. Beulke and Lewis bought it, Jasper didn’t.

He dumped the pile of papers on the desk in the only clear space, directly in front of Maria. “Beulke thought there was something hinky with Soskin. Beyond the normal criminal hinky.” He added before she could say anything. “He and Lewis have been going through his financials. They found something.” He shifted the papers looking for the map of Russia. “He has been selling to a Special Working Group within the GRU. That’s where it’s based.” He stabbed at Murmansk on the map.

Maria grabbed it from him and began flipping between the information he had dumped on her desk. Her lips getting thinner and whiter the longer she read.

“Get out.” She ordered the two analysts. They hadn’t realised what they had stumbled upon and she wasn’t inclined to let them in on it either.

“Ma’am!” They hurried out. Pulling the office door firmly closed behind themselves.

“I’m right, right?” Jasper slumped into the single visitor chair. He knew he was, but had hoped that he wasn’t.

“Yes.” The word was a whisper. More a release of air than a fully formed word.

Maria’s frantic reading had slowed, she was going to the papers again. More carefully this time. Reading every word and reading  _ between _ every word. Seeing those things that were left unsaid and seeing the pain that was going to come to people she cared about because of them. Their jobs lived in the shadow as they battled things trying to creepy out of the abyss. This was an abyss they thought they had burnt out years ago.

“Where is she?” Jasper asked when Maria stopped going through the papers, staring at the map unseeing.

“Morocco. Should I put her on this? Natasha shouldn’t have to face these people, not again.” Maria wasn’t objective about the other woman. She would take the mission and doing what needed to be done, probably gladly, but with Clint and Phil out of contact, there wasn’t anyone who could make sure she didn’t lose herself in the abyss.

Jasper stood. “She’ll never forgive you if you don’t. I’ll get you a summary of the Soskin op and Beulke and Lewis’ intel within the hour.” He left. The Assistant Director could handle it and he would be there for Maria when she allowed herself to feel it.

= + =

From Maria’s office, Jasper went to his for the first time that day. Locking the door behind himself he allowed a single minute for his mind to reel, and then pulled himself back together and got to work. The intel needed to be broken down and catalogued properly, the reports from Interpol and Bravo team had to be summerised, and the background information from the original mission brief needed to be updated with the discovered links to Russian intelligence.

Jasper hit send on the document exactly on the projected hour mark. If Natasha got out of Morocco the moment she got the signal, she still had an almost 2 hour flight to go over the information. And that was assuming that Maria allowed her to go in alone, which the Black Widow was just as like to insist on without the option of Clint at her back.

Enough. Jasper had done what he could and passed on as much information as he could. His own operations needed his attention. Having already talked to Beulke he called down to Ops 3. Robertson should have been off her call with Doctor Hall by now, or at least have some preliminary news.

“Robertson speaking.” She answered the phone on it’s second ring.

“Agent, how did things go with Hall?” He got straight to the point.

“Good Morning Agent Sitwell.” She didn’t. “It went well. We were right, the unknown element within the Indian 084 is Gravitonium. Doctor Hall asked for and got permission to consult with the team in Singapore to contain the device, and the team in Tel Aviv to clear our people and get them home. He is hopeful that they should be out of quarantine and on their way home by the end of our work day. I’m just writing it up to send to you.” She got to the point quickly though, which he appreciated.

“Good work. Once your report is in report to Ops 3. Assistant Director Hill should be there. A new op is about to start that you are being reassigned to.” He waited for a confirmation from her and then hung up. When her write up came in that was the end of her and his involvement in that mission, the final bits of clean up and research could be handed off to the R & D people. Let the scientists deal with their own.

With no urgent emails in his inbox, he took a break. Staying on site for lunch today. The cafeteria wasn’t a big space. Buffet dining along one wall and fifteen large, round tables that sat ten each. Between break rooms on each floor for people that brought their lunch with them or didn’t have time to travel down to the cafeteria, a lot of agents working and eating at weird hours, and people in too much of a hurry to eat sitting down, the large building didn’t need a large cafeteria like a standard office their size would. Collecting a chicken soup and a salad sandwich, he took a seat at an otherwise unoccupied table closer to the back of the room than the front.

The table was too quiet. Normally Phil, Blake, Sharon, or Maria was around and their quiet back and forths under the guise of Serious Senior Agent Business™ brought noise and life to a sometimes isolating job. With all of them out of the country or too busy to take a lunch break, he had spotted Agent Harding, Maria’s assistant, come through and stock up on her prefered foods for busy days while he ate.He finished the soup but abandoned the table to take his sandwich upstairs, there was no point in staying out in the open where the Junior Agents could get to him if he didn’t have to.

The doctors in Serbia had sent through their end of day report. Subject 1, real name Rodavan Atlija had been cleared and released at 5 pm local time. Before reading further, Jasper dived back into his emails and found a corresponding email from the SHIELD outpost in Italy confirming receipt of a monitoring assignment for a Mr Rodavan Atlija resident of Novi Pasar. 

Returning to the doctors report he continued reading. Subject 2’s temperature had finally stabilised at a burning 99.5 degrees fahrenheit. For most people that was dangerously high. So far they hadn't seen any ill effects which they should have if it was going to. For that one, Jasper sent a flag to SHIELD Medical to compare the results with Romanov’s who also ran hot. From memory she didn’t run that hot though. 

Subject 3 was still in a coma, Doctor Simard had received the data and initial reports but his initial report suggested that unless subject 3 showed signs of improvement soon, his brain would burn itself out and he would become a vegetable. THe only bright spot was that Doctor Simard didn’t know about the experimental serum the unnamed man had been exposed to which might just give him a bit longer to pull out of it. In the end , it was a waiting game that Jasper could do nothing about.

The rest of the afternoon was swallowed up by the mountains of paperwork that came with handing over an op that had turned from active into a long term research assignment. People, asset, and resources reassignment or redistribution, final reports for the Brass and then redacting that same report for the archives. All of it took hours and multiple pots of coffee. He could have left some of it for the next day, but with an empty apartment waiting for him, he didn’t see the need to get out of the office at a ‘reasonable’ hour.

When all was said and done, the sun had long since set and most of the office buildings around him had been abandoned for more interesting pastures by the time he left. 


	12. Day 11: Disaster Doesn't Only Strike Once

And the week had been going so well. It probably wasn’t the most professional thing to think when the jingling of his phone went off in the dark of his bedroom. His hand slapped onto the little device on the bedside table and swiped to accept the call, all without lifting his face from where it was buried in his pillow.

“Wha’?” He grumbled.

“Sir?” Agent Kardel’s voice was confused. 

“I’m here, what’s going on?” He rolled over so that his voice was clearer.

“I’ve just intercepted an email. You should get back in here. I’ve sent a motor pool car to collect you.”

“See you soon.”

If Kardel was calling him in at, god 3 am, about an email something had gone very very wrong. Melissa blinked awake next to him. She would have only just gotten home. 

“What’s goin’ on?” Her voice was slurred with exhaustion.

“Word from Phil. I have to go in.” 

“M’kay.” She turned back over and her breathing evened out in sleep. Both of them were used to the other’s odd sleeping pattern and were able to drop in and out of sleep easily.

He was dressed and out the door in under ten minutes. Still shrugging his jacket on as he pushed through the building doors onto the street. An unmarked black sedan was idling at the curb. An agent he didn’t recognise was leaning against the front passenger, the young woman jumped forward at the sight of him. Moving to open the door for him. Waving her off, he got his own door. He didn’t need people jumping to do shit for him, he just needed them to do their jobs.

The car moved smoothly away from the curb and into traffic the second his seatbelt had clicked into place. At such an early hour, the drive from Brooklyn into Manhattan was quick. Fifteen minutes after leaving his building, they were pulling up in the car park right next to the elevators. The doors to one of them was open and waiting. Whatever had been in that email was bad.

The thirteen floor rise was quick enough that Jasper felt as if his stomach had been left somewhere around the second floor. The control room they were using on Ops 5 was almost as full as it had been the first day. Kardel was seated at the main console, typing away furiously. She was the only movement.

Sarah Robertson and Felicity were seated behind a line of computers along the left side of the room, both of them silent and still, watching the main monitors. Maria stood just behind Kardel, watching whatever the analyst was doing. A couple of the R & D guys that Clint liked to annoy were standing huddled on the right of the room, bent over a tablet and muttering quietly together.

“What’s happened?” Jasper sidled up beside Maria and asked for an update quietly, not wanting to startle anyone. 

“A series of emails between the ship and their Head Office. First one came about an hour ago. Didn’t think much of it, the first one was from the Ship’s doctor about a call to one of the suites. His follow up was what caught our attention.” She paused and passed over a table with the emails open.

He quickly read the second email, the doc mentioned Phil and Barton’s room number but didn’t specify what he had been called for. “So? Barton’s injuries from the jet ski accident are probably just playing up.”

“Keep reading.” She tapped a short nail against the slowly darkening screen, reawakening it.

He sent her annoyed look but did as she asked. The next email in the series was from the head of security and then another two from the doctor. Finally, a response from Headoffice effectively shut the chatter down. All of them had talked around whatever had happened, but one thing was clear, one of the people staying in the room Phil and Barton were staying in had died.

Phil or Clint had died. A milk run of a mission had gone so far sideways that it was going back the way it had come and either Jasper’s best friend or one of SHIELD’s best specialists had died on a mission were they shouldn’t have even gotten a papercut. There wasn’t any paper involved for them to get cut on!

Jasper’s pre-coffee brain wasn’t really moving on from the died, no papercuts thought. It felt like his brain had turned into a badly abused cd player and his thoughts were a scratched cd that the player just kept skipping and grinding as they spun hopelessly in a circle.

“What?”

“It says…” Robertson had joined Maria and him at some point while he had been reading.

“I know what it means! What are we doing about it? Where is the ship right now? How long will it take to get a team out to them?” Jasper broke in.

“Kardel.” Maria pointed at the operation’s analyst who was still bent over her computer.

“The ship is 300 kilometers off the coast of Orlando, Florida.” Kardel piped up. 

“We don’t have a team to send Jasper.” Maria reminded him.

“Then I’m going.” He turned to leave. There was always a quin jet fuelled and ready to go on the roof, he was going to requisition it.

Maria grabbed his arm. Spun him back around. The room was holding its breath over her shoulder. Senior Agents never confronted each other where Juniors could see them, there were rumours of the shouting matches between Coulson and Hill, but no one had ever seen them to confirm the stories.

“And do what Jasper? I know you haven’t liked being out of contact with them. But Phil is the best we have and he can look after himself. Barton has been doing that since he was a kid. Whatever happened happened so fast that being in contact with them wouldn’t have made a difference and whichever of them is gone, you can’t do anything to help them now.” Maria hissed at him. Trying to keep the babies from hearing her. It didn’t work. You could have heard a pin dropping on the carpeting it was so silent.

He shook her off. Stalking back into the room, the only concession that she was right that she was going to get, he took up his post just behind Kardel.

“Has there been any other emails on or off the ship?” He asked, having to struggle to keep his voice even.

Maria stepped up beside him, there to keep him in place no doubt.

“Don’t you have your own disasters to deal with?” He grumbled. He didn’t need to be watched over like a wayward kindergartener.

She just waved her tablet at him.

“No sir. I’m sorry.” Kardel turned to look at him. The command prompt window blinked over her shoulder, still with enforced silence.

He pulled in a deep breath. “Ok. Let me know the second that changed.” He left, her ‘yes sir’ followed him out into the corridor.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to update Fury.” He told Maria when she stopped beside him in front of the elevators.

The Director was in Africa somewhere, or he could of been in Alaska, who knew? Regardless, he would want to know that he had lost either his one good eye and best friend, or a highly valued specialist. What a clusterfuck.

Jasper stood staring at his phone for a minute before picking up the receiver. Calling the Director when he was off site wasn’t as easy as punching in a number and a phone on the other side of world ringing. There was protocol and security levels and voice prints. First he called Fury’s secretary, he had him confirm his SHIELD badge number and voice print, from there he was ported through to an automatic service that was as close to AI as anything in the world apart from Stark’s rumoured computer butler, the AI asked a series of questions to confirm that Jasper was human, ironic, and that he  _ actually _ needed to talk to the Director. The computer put him on hold and he listened to what amounted to elevator muzak while the computer talked to Fury. Finally, Fury’s growl was on the other end of the phone.

“Sitwell.”

“Director. I’m calling in regards to Operation: Harmony.” Jasper paused. Giving himself a second before he brought all sorts of shit down on himself. “I regret to inform you that one of our Agents has been killed during the  operation. The details on how and who are not yet known.” He bulldozed through the notification.

The line was dead air after he finished. On any other phone line and talking to anyone else, he would have worried that the call had dropped. On this line, to this person it was the silence of Fury absorbing the information and re-arranging the chess pieces in his head.

“Motherfucker.” The response when it came was vehement.

The anger was expected. The deep sound of sadness in the director’s voice wasn’t.

“Sir?” Something else was going on here.

“Nothing you need to know about Sitwell. I’ll be back on base tomorrow. Keep me updated.” Fury hung up before waiting for the acknowledgement that wasn’t needed. Any agent that deviated even slightly from an order from Fury wasn’t going to be an agent for very long.

Jasper fell bonelessly into his office chair. For the whole call he had been stood at attention, falling back on old habits and training that allowed for detachment came in handy. 

He stayed there for a long time.

= + =

Hiding all day wasn’t an option. Aside from it being unprofessional, he did actually have a job to do. With coffee in hand, he returned to Ops 5, passing one of the steaming mugs off to Agent Kardel as an unspoken thanks, he wasn’t surprised to be told there wasn’t any news. He didn’t bother asking her to keep him informed, again. She knew her job and knew how to get in contact with him when something changed.

An email pinged into his inbox just as he was leaving the Ops centre Kardel was haunting. Bravo were back on base and gathering for a debrief. They were meeting in the conference room on his floor, so he got back on the elevator to head up. Agents Lewis and Beulke joined him the floor below his. Both of them looked better rested than the last time he had seen them.

Everyone else had already arrived when they got there. The four members of Strike Bravo were arranged around one end of the table, Maria at the other end. Jasper, Lewis and Beulke slipped into the free seats and they got underway. Picking over every decision and observation. Breaking down the doctors reports and pulling the crime scene techs finding apart. It took hours.

Jasper’s stomach was clenching with hunger by the time the meeting broke up in the early afternoon. He had missed breakfast and lunch in the rush of information and devastation of the day so far. Gathering up the papers that were cramped with writing that he had accumulated during the meeting, he was the second last to leave. Maria standing at the door waiting for him.

“How are things going in Russia?” He asked after they had gotten halfway to the elevator bank without her saying a word.

“Widow arrived on scene this morning. I’m expecting her first sitrep in about an hour.”

Which meant that exactly on the hour, an email or call or smoke signal would go out from Natasha. The woman’s sense of time and adherence to protocol was almost as strong as Phil’s is. Jasper stumbled over the thought slightly, should he be thinking about his friend in the past or present tense? Was it horrible of him to hope that Phil was still an is and not a was? Jasper didn’t get on with Barton well, not many people did really, but he didn’t want the man dead.

They split up in the little foyer in front of the elevators. Maria heading into the stairs to go up a level to her office. Jasper stepping into the car when it arrived to go and find some food. Unable to stomach the idea of going to the cafeteria, he got off a level above it and headed out of the building. He didn’t have anywhere in particular in mind and the thought of food was alternatively appealing and nausea inducing.

Without realising what he was doing, he stumbled onto the subway, only coming back to himself when he was standing in the middle of his quiet, sun dappled apartment. He didn’t remember a second of the trip home.


	13. Day 1: Departure

Clint grumbled his way out of bed. His alarm had gone off at the ungodly hour of before dawn. It took him 15 minutes to stumble his way from the bedroom into the bathroom and then downstairs to the coffee maker that he had mercifully remembered to set the night before. At 20 past  _ still before dawn _ Hawkeye was loading Coulson’s and his own bags into a taxi. The Senior Agent had had a pile of paperwork from an assignment wrap up that needed to be finished before they were incommunicado for the next week and a bit, so it had been decided that they would meet at the port. And while it made for a long night for the older man, it was a relief to have that particular assignment properly closed off and hopefully forgotten.  

It was a half hour taxi drive from his place in Bed-stuy to the terminal on the other side of Manhattan, which the archer used to read the news on his phone. After all it was probably his last chance to try and guess where Nat was until he got back to civilisation and she was currently beating him in the ‘super-secret, eyes-only, can’t tell you where I am but you can guess’ game they had been playing for as long as she had been at SHIELD.

Because Phil was coming straight from H.Q., he had left his bags with Clint. That might not have been Phil’s brightest idea…

Traffic was as quiet as it every was in New York. By the time the sun was just starting to come up, Clint was leaning against the wall outside of the Passenger Port a suitcase on either side and his phone in one hand. He had just beaten another level of candy crush when his handler climbed out of one of New York’s fleet of yellow cabs.

“Phil!” Clint shoved his phone away and waved to catch the other man’s attention.

Phil turned towards the shout, a small smile breaking across his face at the sight before him. Hair sticking up in every direction, not purposefully, his shirt was inside out, and his shoes weren’t from the same pair of combat boots. Looking closer Phil suspected one of them might be one of his. He did not doubt for a second that Clint had stumbled through his morning routine without opening his eyes more than absolutely necessary.

Clint smiled back, pushing off from the wall and propelling himself across the space between them. He bumped to a stop against Phil’s chest. They grinned at each other before Clint closed the last bit of distance and pressed a quick, light kiss of hello against Phil’s lips, tasting the other man’s smile.

“Hi.” Phil said, slightly dazed when they parted.

“Hi.” Clint chuckled, his eyes twinkling in the early morning light. 

The senior agent cleared his throat and took a measured half step away from the archer. “We should get checked in.” He could feel his expressing closing just slightly, which was still more than he would ever want it to around Clint.

Clint noticed. A slight crease formed for a second between the archer’s eyebrows before they were consciously smoothed out again. “Oh here.” Clint flipped something at Phil, picked up the bags and joined the flow of passengers heading into the terminal.

Phil caught the metallic object absently, his attention caught by the flex and movement of the muscles under the archer’s golden skin as he lifted the heavy bags, ignoring the wheels in favour of carrying them just for the excuse to flex. Only when Clint was almost lost in the crowd did Phil glance down at the warming metal in his hand. 

It was a battered gold ring.

Phil’s gold ring.

His wedding ring to be exact. The ring he hadn’t worn outside of their apartment in the five years since Clint had joined SHIELD. In the five years since the younger man had asked that they keep their relationship under wraps while he found his footing within the agency.  Phil looked up, trying to find his husband in the bustle of holiday makers. He could feel a smile large enough to hurt, splitting his face. The presence of his own ring rather than a standard issue SHIELD prop was the first sign that Clint was ready to stop hiding.

“Phil! Com’on!” Clint reappeared from behind a large clan of Hawaiian shirt clad Mid-Westerners.

“Really?” Phil held up the ring.

“Yup. Now le’s go. There’s gotta be coffee onboard right?” Clint had procured a trolley from somewhere that he steered with one hand, allowing him to slip his other into Phil’s and pull him into the building.

As they walked, Phil slipped his ring on. Back where it belonged. “Yes Clint. I’m sure they have coffee onboard.”

When Clint tried to step into the general boarding line, Phil tugged him out again. “We’re over there.” He pointed at the first-class line that was significantly shorted than the line Clint had been trying to join.

Clint dug in his heels, his eyes roving between the two lines, a frown marring his handsome face. “No.” He said slowly. “We’re in that lin=-e.” He pointed at the gaggle of barely awake tourists waiting to be checked in. “I read the briefing.” He whispered, pouting at Phil. It wasn’t often he read the full briefing packet, normally relying on a quick skim, the verbal walk-through, and Phil, to know what was going on. He had better things to do with his time then spending it reading a document that changed 50 times between him getting it and the op. But he had actually been looking forward to this mission since he was told about it, a fancy cruise with his husband paid for by SHIELD? Fuck yeah! Especially with how preoccupied Phil had been recently. And he hadn’t wanted to say something to get himself kicked off what was basically a milk run in the briefing or after it.

“I know, but it changed last night. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you.” Phil quietly lied. It was just a teensy tiny white lie, but here wasn’t really the place to tell the truth, not when they were already starting to get a few weird looks from the people around them.

Clint narrowed his eyes at Phil, seeing something in the other man’s expression that no one else would. A miniscule twitch in an eye muscle, or a nearly imperceptible thinning of lips that told him to just go with it and answers would come later.

“You’ll get to the coffee faster in that line.” Phil wasn’t opposed to bribery in the right situation.

With the promise of answers later and coffee soon, Clint allowed himself to be moved. They took their place in the much shorter line, there was a single couple in front of them and even that didn’t cause a delay. As soon as they stepped up a perky 20-year-old man bounced over and half prostrated himself.

“Hello, I am Joshua. Welcome to Royal Atlantic Cruises. May I please have your passes?” His English was softened with just the slightest burr of a Philippine accent.

A sheaf of papers appeared in Phil’s hand, the cruise lines royal blue and emerald green logo emblazoned across the top of the pages. It was addressed to Dr. and Mr. Coulson, but the tri-fold meant Clint couldn’t see anything else that was printed on the thick creamy paper. He looked between it and Phil’s inscrutable ‘agent’ face. That was not the cover they were meant to be using, in fact it wasn’t a cover at all, it was their proper honorifics, honorifics that SHIELD didn’t even know. What the hell was Phil up to?

The peppy Philippino took the papers and quickly read over them. “Welcome Dr. Coulson, Mr. Coulson. Congratulations on your anniversary. Please if you will follow Simone, she will take you to your suite.” He handed the papers over to a young woman standing behind him.

Clint narrowed his eyes at Phil who was starting to pink around the ears. The game was up. SHIELD hadn’t changed their booking, Phil had. Clint slung an arm around his shoulder’s, pulling his husband in close as they followed the cruise employee they had been directed to and a second man who took possession of their luggage, leaving Phil with his computer bag over one shoulder. 

Clint smiled widely at his husband, beginning to laugh when the burn of Clint’s attention caused Phil’s blush to spread across the tops of his cheeks. He pressed a smacking kiss to Phil’s burning cheek and turned his attention to the boats opulent interiors as they emerged from the gangway. 

Just as they stepped into the interior of the vessel, Phil’s SHIELD phone (disguised as a low rent iPhone) rang. Phil pecked Clint’s cheek and stepped away, answering the phone. Without waiting for Phil to greet Jasper, he was already talking.

_ “Coulson, there seems to be a problem with the booking.” _ Jasper’s urgent voice was underlined by the typical bustle of an active ops centre.

“We’ve already checked in.” Phil smiled at Clint where the other man was laughing with the cruise employee who was waiting for Phil to get off the phone. The annoyance of being pulled away from his husband so soon coloured the rest of his words. “I’m not returning to the office.” The words were code for the mission being a go.

_ “Ok send a flag if shit goes sideways.” _ Every now and again, Sitwell’s time in the air force crept into his word choice, annoying Phil’s Ranger’s soul.

“Good. We’ll talk when I’m back.” Phil took more pleasure in hanging up on the other agent then was strictly necessary. Switching the phone to silent and slipping it into his pocket, he re-joined the others. 

An easy hand in Clint’s elbow, alerted the sniper to his presence and the four of them continued into the main foyer of the boat. The early morning light set the gold, teak, and marble finished gleaming, creating a light airy space in the centre of the large vessel.

They followed the two employees through a few short corridors to the elevators, the four of them loaded into the glass walled car, the quick trip down to their floor afforded them a spectacular view into the open public spaces of the ship.

“Is that a forest?” Clint pointed at an area of green that flashed in and out of sight as they continued to descend.

“Yes sir! We have a full park on the Promanade deck.” Simone explained, a happy smile on her face.

As she spoke the elevator pulled to a smooth stop the floor below the Promanade. The door opened on an opulently decorated corridor that stretched for a hundred feet in each direction.

Leading them out of the lift Simone stopped much sooner than Clint was expecting. “This is your Suite Dr. and Mr. Coulson. Suite 6260.” She slipped the electronic key into its slot and with a beep so soft that without the souped up SHIELD hearing aids, Clint wouldn’t have heard it, the door silently swung open. 

Early morning sunlight splashed across the four people as they entered the room. Clint’s eyes widening in surprise, it was bigger than every apartment he had ever had before moving in with Phil and might even still be bigger than their first place. On one side a small well-appointed kitchen gleamed in teak and highly polished chrome. A door on the other side probably lead to the bathroom judging by the extra seal around the door. The kitchen looked across at a small sitting room which in turn lead to a large wooden balcony. An open curtain showed the bedroom with a king-sized bed covered in white sheets with hospital corners that would have made the 20 year Marine Sargent Major, who had kicked Clint’s ass in basic, weep in envy. 

Standing stunned in the doorway Clint missed Simone start talking, luckily Phil slipped out from under Clint’s slack arm and was paying close attention. Shaking his head to clear the shock at the room, Clint tuned back in.

“… In case of emergency, your assembly point will be the aquatheatre at the stern of the ship on this level. If you need assistance at any time or wish to book any on-board or off-board activities please press 0 on either of the phones in your suite and you will be connected with the 24-hour concierge, or approach any of the on-board staff and they will be happy to help you. The booklet on the coffee table has all of your dining and entertainment options.” Simone continued to smile brightly at them. “Is there anything I can help you with at the moment?”

As she had talked the bellboy had disappeared into the bedroom with their luggage, reappeared, and silently twisted behind Clint and out the door.

“We will want to book some shows in the evening but haven’t decided which or when.” Phil had dropped his laptop bag on the sleek modern sofa that was tucked up against the wall and opened the booklet Simone had indicated. Glossy photos of people in tuxedo’s, sparkly leotards, and feathered dressed were neatly set out on the page he had opened to. 

“No problem. I would recommend booking early and on the nights we are underway. I often find people are too tired after their day trips to really enjoy the shows. As I said though, you can contact us at any time and book when you know what you want to do.”

Phil nodded at her words, that made sense. “Excellent, thank you Simone.” Phil gently hustled her to the door, a single raised eyebrow enough to have Clint jumping out of the way and opening the door for her.

The easy politeness and curtesy of the two men caused Simone’s smile to widen even further, something Clint hadn’t thought possible. So many of the guests, particularly those in the suites were rude and self-involved and spoke to and treated her like furniture. The unthinking kindness they had shown would quickly spread through the staff and the Coulson’s would find their trip that much better for it.

With the door securely shut behind Simone, Clint and Phil moved into action. They had the routine of sweeping and securing a new space down pat and didn’t need to speak. Phil had the laptop bag open and passed Clint a small metal case before pulling out the bug-swat. The little gadget had a proper name that was 5 syllables longer than Clint was willing to remember so had renamed it. To Phil’s eternal annoyance the nickname had caught on and he was forever having to chase agents to amend their reports with the correct name.

The dull metal box he had handed Clint opened to show the usual assortment of camera’s and electronic trip wires that they had over long experience found to be the best mixture for securing a medium sized space. Each of the pieces of equipment were snuggle nestled in dark foam and it didn’t take Clint long to place the camera’s in hidden but well-spaced areas that gave complete coverage of the suite. He knew a second box was stashed in the computer bag that would be used to cover Reisgraf’s room when they were able to get access to it. The high-tech trip wires went across each of the external doors. Two on the door to the corridor and two on each of the balcony doors, if the doors opened even a millimetre they would interrupt the laser and an alarm would sound on both of their phones. 

Within a few short minutes the room was as secure as they could make it without a guard dog and armed sentries.

Clint flopped bonelessly onto the couch once he had finished. Openly leering at Phil’s ass as he half disappeared under the bed, finishing his sweep, Clint wolf whistled as Phil shimmied out of the small space. The other man threw a fondly exasperated glare at him before joining Clint on the couch. Phil always left the bed for last, knowing Clint would normally finish first and had a well exercised appreciation of his assets. As such whenever Phil was doing a Sweep & Secure with anyone else, the bed was the first place checked while the other person was otherwise occupied.

“Coffee?” Clint asked plaintively. Already knowing the answer, he threw in an over done pout for good measure.

“Not yet.” Phil patted his knee before liberating the SHIELD laptop from its bag and starting the laborious task of logging in.

By the time Clint had decided whether he wanted to feel patronised by the knee pat (he didn’t) Phil had gotten into the cruises systems.

“Hu.” Phil muttered at the screen. It was a sound that most at SHIELD would never have believed the Senior Agent, who was regularly rumoured to be a robot (and only 95% of those rumours were started by Clint, thank you very much), would make.

“Hu what?” Clint asked when no further sounds, words or otherwise, were forth coming.

“I can’t get a line out.” Phil continued to tap at the keyboard, trying to work around whatever was blocking him from contacting HQ.

“What?!” Clint levered himself off the couch enough to look over Phil’s shoulder, watching as lines of code flashed across the screen. 

Neither of the men could see anything wrong with the code, their signal was just bouncing back.

“There’s a lot of steel and shit on the boat and the dock, maybe the signal is being bounced?” Clint suggested. “Change that to alternating rather than continual.” He pointed at the part of the code he was talking about.

A few quick clicks made the suggested alternation.

“Aw, code no.” Clint whined when they signal bounce just got worse. There wasn’t enough daylight nor caffeine in his bloodstream for this shit. “Leave it and try once we’ve left?” He half suggested, half asked. He just wanted coffee damn it.

After poking at the code for a little longer Phil had to agree, there was nothing for it while they were docked. Maybe hard lining into the ship’s systems would help? But that would have to wait until tonight.

With a nod, the two men silently packed up the few pieces of equipment that were still out and left the room, comfortable in each other’s presence as they began to explore the ship.

“Riesgraf and his wife are in Room 6288, the only way out of the corridor except the emergency exits in just over there.” Phil said quietly to Clint, to any outside observer it would look like he was whispering sweet nothings into his lover’s ear.

There were too many people around with boarding still happening for them to do much beyond looking where Phil had pointed but it was good to start getting a lay of the land. 

“Starbucks!” Clint exclaimed, spotting the green and white sign when they passed the elevators into the main thorofare of their floor. 

Phil scowled, normally he avoided the chain like the plague, preferring boutique hipster owned cafes. Clint on the other hand didn’t care where his caffeine boost came from as long as it was often and plentiful. There was a long moment where they ground to a stand still as Phil dug his heels in, refusing to move, and Clint tried to tug him towards the alluring sent of roasting beans.

“No.” The single word was enough to stop Clint’s tugging.

The blonde man instead turned and  _ pouted _ . “But, Phil! I’mma die if I don’t get coffee now and then you’re gonna have to organise my funeral and explain to all of our friends how you let me die cause of caffeine deprivation.” 

A passing couple stared at the unmoving pair, blinking owlishly at Clint’s words.

Phil smiled tightly at them and gave in with a grumble. The swill at Starbucks it was. Armed with coffee, they spent the next hour wandering the ship, starting with the level they were staying on and working their way to the top just in time to watch as the vessel started its lumbering exit from the dock. Eyes on the churning water they stood shoulder to shoulder, sharing body heat to fight off the chilly breeze coming in off the open water.

“I want to try and get into the ticketing system around lunch, figure out if they booked anything.” Phil said, using the thunder of the engines to cover their conversation from the other couple and family’s standing close by.

“If we get close to one of the concierge desks can you get in?” Clint asked, dipped the shoulder that was resting against to his husband and leant in closer. The move prompted Phil to sling an arm around his shoulders. It was an unconscious reaction that Clint often took advantage of when they were alone or unobserved by SHIELD.

“Normally yes.” Phil started, thinking it thought. “But with whatever was happening earlier with the internet, I can’t say for certain.”

“Play it by ear it is.” Clint shrugged. He had no problem winging a mission, he had always been better at working on the fly anyway. Phil on the other hand  _ hated it! _ Mission prep was the only area of his life that he allowed his OCD to take over. It was too much of a handicap to allow it to creep into any other aspects of his life (and Clint would just laugh at him if he tried to colour code their underwear like he did when he was a kid).

Phil huffed out a breath at the words. Leaving the railing they moved back inside and continued with casing the ship now that they had moved into the congested waters of the Hudson River.

By the time they wound their way down to the main dining room on deck 5, the early lunch rush had started, between dads trying to run herd on their children, and mums arguing with the wait-staff the noise was immense. The SHIELD agents used the cover to gain the strained attention of one of the concierges at the ticket desk on that desk. 

“Hi. Um. Hello. Can you help us?” Clint slid into the bumbling American tourist stereotype easily, with his corn-fed, mid-western looks he pulled it off easily.

“Hello Sir! What can I help you with?” The woman behind the desk was a blonde amazon. Taller than both of them by a good few inches she was more believable as a Viking shield maiden, than a cruise ship director. The intimidation some might feel at her stature was off-set by the bright, sincere smile that was holding up even in the face of the toddler screaming for ice cream three feet behind Clint.

“What can you tell me ‘bout the circus act?” Clint asked, he wasn’t particularly keen to be reminded of his childhood antics with Carson’s but it was a topic he could pester someone about extensively which was the point of all this.

Beside him, Phil had allowed him shoulders to slouch and one hip to cock, his posture screaming older, bored businessman waiting for his boy top husband to get on with it. One hand tucked into a pocket, he had his phone in the other. It could, purposefully, be mistaken that he was checking emails and he added a mutter about clients and accounts and budgets to finish off the performance. Behind the businessman exterior, he was halfway into the ticketing system before the woman had spoken.

“Of course sir! There are two performances a night in Studio B, a family friendly showing at 6pm and a more… risqué showing at 9pm.” She winked, sliding her eyes to Phil suggestively. It was her job to notice things about the guests to give them the best experience possible and she had seen the couple intertwined when they approached.

Clint grinned in understanding, flicking his eyes to Phil and allowing just the right amount of leer to enter his smile as his eyes travelled over the other man. “And what sort of acts are there?” He slowly swung his eyes back to the woman. He was trying to keep her attention on him after all and checking out Phil while letting the conversation lapse wasn’t the best idea.

Phil could feel Clint’s eyes on him but refused to meet the kaleidoscopic gaze, keeping his own eyes on his work.

“Most of the classic circus acts.” She said with a smile, they were an odd pair, the older one pretending to ignore the younger while obviously being acutely aware of his movements. “Clowns, tumblers, acrobats and a few specialty acts that I don’t want to spoil.”

“Animals?” Clint asked, Phil hadn’t given the signal that he was done yet.

“Unfortunately, due to Customs restrictions with some of our ports we can’t have animals on board.” She explained. She didn’t think it would be a problem though, generally it was the children that were more disappointed by the lack of animals than the adults.

As she finished talking, Phil sighed and put his phone away. “Clint you know you want to see it, buy tickets for the 4 th .”

Clint  _ did not _ want to see it, thank you very much. He had spent enough time  _ being _ in circus shows that the last thing he wanted to do was spend a night watching one. Phil must have gotten into the ticketing system and seen that Riesgraf had tickets, cause Clint knew that Phil didn’t want to go any more than he did.

Clint smiled widely at Phil, “The 9 pm show?” He hoped to god it was, sitting through a family friendly show would be the shitty icing on the cake. “Was there anything you wanted to see? We may as well book now.”

Phil smiled back, a wicked gleam in his eye. “9pm sounds good. There is a jazz show that I would love to see. How about we do that on the 6 th ?” It was something that he would actually have chosen to do himself so Phil was in luck that their mark was also a jazz fan.

Clint narrowed his eyes but pasted his smile back on as he turned to look at the woman behind the counter. “So 9pm on the 4 th for the circus and the jazz show on the 6 th .”

“Of course. Room number sir?” She asked, tapping the order into her computer.

“6260.” Phil answered, sliding an arm around Clint’s waist as he joined the other man at the counter.

“Alrighty. Your tickets are booked and saved to your account. They will just scan your access cards on the night.” She smiled brightly at them.

“Thank you so much for your help Caroline.” Phil smiled back, although not as brightly, his face didn’t stretch quite that wide.

Turned away slightly from Phil and  _ Caroline _ , Clint rolled his eyes unseen. Of course, Phil had already scoped her name. With their transaction ended, Phil said good bye and the two wandered off. Neither of them particularly wanted to sit in a large room full of rowdy civilians to eat. Instead they opted for a quieter café just off the green area that Clint had spotted that morning.

They wiled away they early afternoon in the boutiques on the mid-levels of the ship. They were discussing the merits of a $10,000 watch in Bvlgari, there weren’t any, when Clint spotted Riesgraf’s wife wandering passed the window. Clint nudged Phil and tipped his head towards the window. Phil easily caught the hint and put the watch down. “It’s nice, but I still prefer my Chopard.” He said with a sigh. Together they wandered with purpose out of the shop, making noises about picking up something for Clint’s sister next door. They made a good showing of playing the wealthy tourists. They stepped out of the Bvlgari store just as the deep red, perfectly coiffed ponytail of Mrs Gina Riesgraf flicked around the door of the Cartier store. Clint and Phil followed her in.

Compared to the glittering marble and crystal of the last store, the clean black and chrome lines that now surrounded them was a visual relief. Arm threaded through Clint’s elbow, Phil lead his husband along the counter pointing out pieces as they went. Clint played along easily, demurring each of the pieces as not right for Nat. Absently bumping up against Gina’s back, they both started apologising even as Clint’s hand snaked into her purse. Pick pocketing skills allowed him to liberate the phone and palm it out of sight. Phil took over the conversation, complementing her on the earrings she had been admiring and asking about her holiday so far. With her attention diverted Clint clicked the brown leather phone cover off, attached the tracker, clipped the case back on, and had the phone back in her purse before she had a chance to realise it was missing.

With his job done, Clint tuned back into the conversation. “I went to the spa this morning, absolutely divine.” Gina was sighing.

“We will definitely have to give it a try, right Sweetheart?” Phil lent into Clint’s side and smiled warmly at him.

“Sounds good babe.” Clint smiled back.

They stood in the cool darkness of the store talking for a long time. Finally, Gina excused herself to meet with her husband.

“It was lovely meeting you both. We should have a meal during the trip or something.” She offered.

“Absolutely. We are in cabin 6260. Call and we can organise something.” Phil agreed easily.

They waved her off and after allowing enough time for her to have left, they also left. Emerging into the bright, sun-drenched main boulevard of the level they were left to blink for a long minute, allowing their eyes to re-adjust to the light level.

“Work out?” Clint asked. He needed to work off some energy and they had nothing else to do until they could get into the Riesgrafs’ room.

It was quick work to get back to their cabin to change. The cabin was undisturbed and flooded with sunlight. Their bags were still on the end of the bed where they had left them hours earlier. With a flick of his wrist, Clint had his bag open and was digging through his clothes to find his gym shorts and shirt. Next to him, Phil opened his own bag with a bit more care. Clint knew the second Phil had his bag open because an unholy screeching sound rammed into his ear drums.

“The hell?!” Clint yelped and instinctually dived away from the sound.

“NO! WHAT  _ ‘THE HELL’ _ THIS?!” Phil yelled.

From his position on the floor, Clint blinked up at the other man. It wasn’t often that Phil yelled and it was almost exclusively saved for when Clint had gotten himself badly hurt in some stupid stunt… actually Phil yelled quite a bit.

“Oh.” Clint said intelligently. He had forgotten about that.

“OH?” Phil turned on him. “Where are my clothes?”

“Well, see… um…” Clint stammered and winced. “All you packed were suits, which aren’t really cruise appropriate.” Clint was considering getting off the floor but the thunder cloud that was his husband’s expression convinced him otherwise.

“Is there anything in my bag aside from Neon Hawaiian shirts and board shorts?” Phil seethed already known the answer.

“No.” Clint winced again, he was so going to pay for this in some unexpected but extremely painful way. 

Phil narrowed his eyes at Clint, considering the situation. Before Clint could move, Phil turned and left, the cabin door banging loudly behind him. 

Clint scrambled off the floor, almost slipping in his socks on the carpet. He raced out the door and into the corridor, casting around wildly tying to catch sight of Phil’s broad shoulders. The delay in finding his feet had given Phil enough time to leave the corridor. From there he could have jumped into one of the crowded elevators or used the crowd on their level to disappear. If Phillip J. Coulson had a superpower it was being able to blend in. Even with his eyesight, Clint didn’t stand a chance of spotting him.

Clint went back into the room, made a pot of what could possible, in an alternate dimension, be called coffee, and sat down to wait. Phil would have to come back at some point.

While he waited, he pulled the tracker up on the laptop and lay it over the ship schematic that had been part of the briefing packet. He kept one eye on that and one on the door.

He waited.

He watched as the tracker meandered through the casino.

He waited as the ‘coffee’ grew cold in the untouched mug.

He watched as the little red dot passed his door.

He waited as the sky faded from blue to pink to purple to navy.

He moved when the tracker sat down for dinner.

He had waited and watched for hours and he was bored of both. He stuffed his lock pick into a pocket and slithered out of the cabin. The hallway outside their cabin was still. Most people at dinner or a show, living up their first night on board. He strode down the carpet lined hallway, long experience had proven that if there was no way to hide your approach, walking with purpose generally made people leave you alone. Clint was in front of the Riesgraf cabin and through their door in seconds. Their cabin was smaller than Phil and Clint’s. Two rooms, a kitchenette and bedroom with a small sitting area spread out before Clint and a small bathroom on his left. 

The size made it easy to search.

No papers left lying around, but a sleek, matte laptop was closed on the coffee table. Clint wasn’t as good with technology as Phil was, but SHIELD had a few handy gadgets when the agent being sent in didn’t have the necessary skills.

Clint slid a USB into the port and waited for a command window to open. He typed the commands to download a worm on to the system, it would wait for the next log in and then steal data and passwords. Eventually, opening a backdoor into Aldis’ files. An LED on the end of the USB flashed dull green once. It was done. He pulled the little stick out of the laptop and stuck it in a pocket. A quick sweep of the room had everything back in the exact spot it had been when he arrived and flicking off the lights, he got the hell out of dodge.

With the cabin door closed behind him, he was able to pull in a deep breath. The first in several minutes it felt like. It wasn’t often that he went in without Natasha by his side or Phil in his ear and he didn’t like the loneliness.

The hallway was still deserted, and he was back in his room only fifteen minutes after he left. Pushing open his own door, his heart dropped when the cabin beyond was still empty. He knew it was stupid to have hoped that Phil had returned in the short time he had been away but a small part of him had.

Leaving the lights off, he returned to his spot on the couch. Login back in to the laptop showed a new folder on the partitioned drive, ready to start mirroring files when they became available. For a long time, he sat and stare at that little icon. Eventually, the screen went black and he continued to sit and stare at the blank screen.


	14. Day 2: Well that was easy....

The night was closer to morning than midnight and Phil was closer to drunk then sober when he tried to silently slide through the cabin door. In him slightly inebriated state, he wasn’t quite able to meet his normal levels of stealth. The latch caught, and he stumbled over the flooring when the hallway rug that warmed their apartment entrance at home wasn’t where he expected it to be.

A hand against each wall in the narrow doorway kept him on his feet. He straightened to the sight of the blackhole of a gun barrel. 

“God! Phil! I could have shot you.” Clint said even as he was clicking the safety back on and replacing the pistol in its holster.

“CLINT!” Phil greeted him excitedly. A wide smile half bloomed on his face before he remembered he was angry at him. “Clint.” The second greeting was accompanied by a low growl and frown that was meant to show that he was still angry, although he couldn’t quite remember why…, but ended more on the adorable put-out end of the spectrum.

“Are you drunk?” Clint flicked the overhead lights on, flooding the room with a golden glow.

“No.” Phil said even as he wobbled on his feet.

“Okay. Let’s get you to bed.” Clint wrapped an arm around Phil’s waist and held the other man up as they awkwardly manoeuvred around the furniture. At the bed, Clint let go and the older man collapsed without the support, bouncing a few times on the high-quality mattress.

Phil was asleep even as Clint was working on getting his shoes off him. Clint stood at the end of the bed and watched him drool into the sheets. He couldn’t figure out what was going on with Phil at the moment. Blowing up over a dumb prank? Clint pulled stupider shit every other Tuesday and normally all he got was an indulgent smirk. 

And getting drunk on mission? Clint hadn’t seen Phil drunk in this century, god the last time Phil had been drunk it had resulted in them breaking DADT and finally admitting they liked each other. Now days it was rare for Phil to have more than a single drink, he didn’t like the lack of control alcohol caused. 

He had been off for a while and up until this point had been effectively dodging Clint on whatever it was. And he would get to continue dodging him, because the middle of a mission, even if it was a milk run, was not the time to be getting into it.

Clint returned to his nest on the couch. He didn’t feel like crawling in to bed with Phil with how they had left things, and one thing Clint vividly remembered from that night long ago was that Phil starfished when he was drunk and was liable to edge Clint out of the bed in his sleep.

Clint desperately wanted to take out his hearing aids after having had them in for 20 plus hours, but with Phil out for the count he couldn’t risk it, so with slightly aching ears and feeling compressed in an uncomfortable way, he struggled to get to sleep. Finally falling into a restless doze sometime in the early hours of the morning.

= + =

The sun was shining off the wide expanse of ocean out their balcony window, so instead of sitting inside with his coffee, Clint sprawled across a lounge chair and slowly drank his way through two pots of coffee as he watched files trickle in from Riesgraf’s laptop. The man had been up even earlier than Clint, who had woken on the too short couch with enough time to watch the end a glorious sun rise. The accountant had been steadily working away since he got up and the files the worm had already mirrors were intel gold, the analysists were going to lose their god damn minds.

He was working up a pretty decent tan by the time Phil fell out of bed and began stumbling between the bedroom and bathroom. He shifted further into the settee, almost hidden by the back of his chair. With Phil awake, he took out his aids and almost sighed with relief.

The glass balcony wall provided a good reflection of the inside of the room, and Clint was able to watch unnoticed as Phil progress through the rooms, watching as he knocked into the coffee table and sent a file skidding across the floor and then stubbed his toe against the sofa. 

Clint gave it a slow count of ten after the bathroom door closed before going back inside to refill his coffee, tipping the last of the pot into his mug and neglecting to reset the machine.

He was back in his chair on the balcony by the time Phil exited the bathroom. His walk between the bathroom and bedroom was smoother this time, the shower having cleared some of the mental cobwebs. Behind him, Phil refilled the coffee pot and stood at the counter waiting for it to brew, forehead rested against the upper cabinets.

Clint knew they needed to talk but he wasn’t ready to face whatever it was that had Phil so on edge. In an effort to delay the inevitable, he pulled the work laptop onto his knees and began filtering through the files they had stolen from Riesgraf. It might be petty, ok fine it was definitely petty, but Phil had been a bear for months now and the few times Clint had tried to bring it up, Phil had jumped down his throat. He wasn’t going to take the high road this time. This time he was going to be petty, and immature, and sulk. Phil could do the work to fix what he had broken.

“Morning.” Phil came out on the balcony, squinting in the bright sunlight. Dressed in yesterday’s slacks and one of Clint’s nicer shirts, he had a full mug of coffee in one hand and the fresh pot in the other. He carefully placed his load onto the low table and fell into the other chair, turning his face up to the sun, soaking in the warmth and sea breeze.

With his hearing aids out and his eyes laser focused on the laptop he missed the greeting. After a long moment without a response, Phil looked closer at the other man, noticing the lack of the small hearing devices, the tapped Clint on the shoulder and repeated his greeting in sign.

“Morning.” Clint responded this time, his voice slightly too loud.

They sat in silence as they each drank their coffee, a time that was normally comfortable and filled with easy conversation, spoken or signed, now cold and tense. Reaching the end of his drink, Clint gave up. He returned the laptop to the table and pushed himself out of his chair. He had been up for hours and it was time to properly start his day.

The slight squeak of the glass door was the only thing that broke the silence as he slipped back inside. The frown that had taken up residence on his face, stayed firmly affixed through his shower and getting dressed. He hesitated in the lounge section, he hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch the day before and he wanted to get food, and he didn’t want to just leave without saying anything, but he also didn’t want to break the stalemate they had found themselves in.

The laptop that was sitting ignored at Phil’s elbow was what decided him, he would break the silence. They were on a mission and needed to remember that even if it was a milk run that Clint had fulfilled the terms of last night. 

Putting hid aids back in, he stuck his head out of the glass door. “Hey, you up for some breakfast?” Clint asked. He could see the slightest green tinge around Phil’s mouth at the mention of food, but the other man swallowed it down and stood.

They settled on the buffet style restaurant on one of the upper floors. Taking advantage of the outside seating, they chose a small table tucked into a quiet corner that offered spectacular views of the ocean and to Clint’s eyes the haze of land on the western horizon. Phil opted for more coffee and a plate of dry toast, still feeling the effects of the night before, which wasn’t that much different from his normal coffee and Danish from the café across the road from HQ that Clint brought him hours after he had started work because he always forgot to eat. Clint on the other hand took the opportunity to splurge and loaded up a plate of eggs, bacon and fruit. At home Clint was more likely to subsist on a bowl of nutrient deficient, sugar laden cereal or the highly nutritious cardboard the SHIELD cafeteria tried to pass off as food.

In strained silence they ate. Clint waiting for Phil to say something and Phil waiting for his head to stop pounding.

Clint broke first. “Where did you go last night?” The words had slipped out before he realised he was going to say anything. Last night, the annoyance at Phil’s over reaction had been tinged with worry when he had been gone for so long. Now that worry and the irritation at the silent treatment had tipped over into anger.

Phil glowered at him over the rim of his mug. “I went for a drink.”

“Are you serious? I know that. I don’t know why. We’re in the middle of a mission.” Clint hissed, trying to keep his voice down. There wasn’t anyone sitting close by, but he was still trying to maintain some level of mission integrity.

“It’s a milk run.” Phil said, voice flat.

“So? It’s still a mission.” Clint tried to flatten his voice to match Phil’s.

Phil shot him a dirty look. “A baby agent still wet from the academy could have handled this. We both know the only reason we were sent was because of that stupid bet.” Emotion was finally leaking into his voice. The end of his words coloured by annoyance. He punctuated the sentence by standing and stalking off.

Clint was left stunned at the table, his hands itching for the comforting weight of a bow and the soft feathers of a fletching to combat the anxiety that was threatening to choke him. Never in the ten years they had been married, nor in the two years they had known each other before that, had Phil ever dismissed a mission. If they weren’t stuck on a boat for at least the next few days, he would have suspected him of being compromised and scrapped the mission. 

As it was, he had managed to get access to the files they needed and as long as he could keep Coulson, and it was Coulson at the moment, not Phil, from blowing the mission they would be okay.

Clint’s internal clock told him he had been sitting there alone for half an hour when a body slid into Phil’s chair.

“I would never leave you all alone. Anyone could come along and gobble you up.” The new comer purred, pulling Clint from his stunned silence.

Clint flinched back from the hand that tried to cover his.

“What?” He asked stupidly, heaving heard her but not really registering her words.

The woman across from him was 20 years his senior and encrusted with more gold and precious stones then he could afford to buy in 5 years with his salary at SHIELD.

“I would treat you much better than that boring old man would.” She simpered, leaning across the small table. The new position gave Clint a calculated view down her shirt at her plastic enhanced assets.

The overwhelming cloud of perfume made him sneeze, and the bright sun shine glinting off her diamond rings was hurting his eyes. Standing from his chair he quickly excused himself and had to stop from running off the balcony.

The crowded, main dinning room was dull and shadowed after the over exposed sun-drenched deck. He stopped just inside the door, breathing in the cooler air why trying to think where Coulson might have gone. The room was most likely, and Clint was in the elevator with their floor selected before he thought better of it. Showing up without thinking wasn’t going to get anything other than a door slammed in his face.

_ Fix the problem you can _ . His internal voice, that sounded a lot like Tasha said sneeringly. He was half tempted to ignore the voice but even though it was his imagination, he was certain that she would and could appear out of thin air and smack him for ignoring her. 

The straw that had broken the camel’s back was the clothes, maybe getting somethings to replace that was a good place to start. They had seen a couple of shops with clothes the day before on the floor below their own. He punched the 5 button and ignored the doors when they opened on 6, riding the glass box further down into the ship.

The third shop he tried had something that Phil would find wearable, button downs and khakis abounded with a few pressed black slacks amongst it all. It wouldn’t be his usual slick, perfectly pressed, suits but it was better than the neon Hawaiian prints Clint had packed. 

Grabbing a few options in Phil’s size, Clint hurried them to the counter. He wanted to get back to the room before Phil left again, if that was where he had gone. The cashier eyed him critically as he dumped the pile of clothes onto the counter. His silent judgement coming across loud and clear, he may as well have been shouting Bullshit into the quiet store. He didn’t believe that someone who dressed like Clint, in his cargo shorts and tee shirt, would buy from  _ his _ store.

When the total was rung up, the cashier was almost proven right. Clint baulked at the number. 

Oh, he had money. SHIELD payed him ok and he and Phil only had a small mortgage left, but at heart he was still the dirt-poor Iowa farm boy who had too often gone without enough for food, let alone spending that much on clothes! Swallowing down the bile that the thought of dropping that amount of cash brought up, Clint swiped his card and fled the store. 

To work off some of his money anxiety, he took the stair back up to their floor. The one flight no where near enough to work it out of his system. The cabin was still when he pushed through the door. Phil wasn’t there, and there wasn’t any sign he had come back either. He dumped the bags at the foot of the bed and grabbed up the laptop and his bookbag. He was quickly back out the door. No way was he going to wait around in the cabin all day. 

Lugging the computer and bag up eight flights of stairs was enough to work off the agitation. In the adults only section at the back of the massive vessel, it didn’t take Clint long to find a deck chair that was half in the shade and half in the sun. He set the laptop on his legs and began to go through the files, it looked like they, no fuck it,  _ HE _ had successfully got everything off the laptop and the backdoor was installed.

With the mission’s main objective reached Clint closed down and slipped the laptop into his bag, taking a pile of papers out instead.  Flagging down a passing waiter he ordered a coke and settled in to get some of his own work done. The only down time he had had recently was medically mandated and there was no way his concussion pillowed mind would be able to keep his train of thought long enough to get through it.

His legs were nicely toasty and, forgotten at his elbow, the ice in his second drink was melted, forgotten about. His first read through and edit of the document had revealed some serious flaws in the logic that would take time to unravel. 

He was about to jump into a second go-through, mind spinning with graphs and formulae, when he realised the lounge next to his own had been occupied at some point. If it had been anyone other than his husband sprawled next to him, it would have registered a lot sooner, but at a particularly rough patch during an early shared mission in Serbia, his brain had categorised Phil as a non-threat and accepted his presence. 

“I’m sorry.” The words were murmured quietly when Clint looked at the man beside him.

“Phil, that’s not good enough anymore.” Clint murmured back sadly. He hated fighting with Phil, but getting drunk on a mission, possibly putting them both at risk was unacceptable.

Phil slumped even further into his chair, ran a tired hand over an exhausted face, and sighed. “I know.” Phil kept his eyes on the ocean, he knew if he looked at Clint right now, he would probably start crying. He was just so done with it all. All of the bullshit and lying.

“Can we just leave it until we get home?” Clint stuffed his papers back into his bag, things must be even worse then he thought if Phil couldn’t even look at him. A sliver of ice ran down his spine. What if this was it? He had always known he was a lucky bastard to have landed Phillip J. Coulson, badass Army Ranger, SHIELD Agent extraordinar. Was he finally done with him?

Standing with his back to his husband, Clint spoke again. “I’ll sleep on the couch and we can sort it all out later.”

A hard hand closed over his forearm before he could get off the deck. “Clint! Wait! Stop!” Phil tried to turn him around, but he was already feeling like an exposed nerve ending, the last thing he wanted to do was turn around and face the love of his life as he broke up with him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Phil could see people were beginning to notice them. Even more than Clint, he hated being noticed. He took great professional pride in  _ not _ being noticed.

Phil squeezed Clint’s forearm reassuringly before withdrawing his hand with a sigh. Even after ten years of marriage they both tried to respect the other’s personal boundaries after an unfortunate incident a few years ago. “Can we go back to the room and discuss this?”

Clint’s shoulders bunched even higher around his ears, but without being able to see his eyes, Phil didn’t know why. Clint tended to carry all strong reactions, good or bad, in his shoulders and back.

“Fine.” Clint eventually muttered and stalked away, his bag held close to his body protectively.

The awkward silence from that morning was back, only thicker.

Back in their room, Clint avoided the coming conversation with vigour. Brewing a pot of coffee took up a few minutes, and after seeing time on the clock radio, he delayed even further by calling for room service, he had missed lunch between his impromptu shopping spree and getting lost in his paperwork.

Phil had taken a seat on the couch the moment they were through the door and let him putter. Silently watching Clint move around the small rooms. Phil knew Clint needed to move when he was anxious. 

With food delivered there was nothing left to occupy himself with and he gave in, taking a seat on the other end of the couch, leaving as much space between them as possible. A mug of coffee in hand, he drew his knees up to his chest and rested the hot ceramic against his thighs. The food spread out on the coffee table was ignored, neither of them were hungry. Peeking through his eyelashes, he finally noticed what Phil was wearing. It was a shirt and pants that he had bought in unspoken apology. Even seeing that, he stayed silent.

“Clint, what’s going on?” Phil finally broke the impasse, defeat loud in his voice.

“I could ask the same.” Clint responded with more venom than he had intended. He may have known that Phil would leave one day, but it still hurt more than 3 rd degree electrical burns, and he was talking from experience.

“What?” Phil asked. His face scrunching up in confusion.

“I said, I could ask the same.” Clint over enunciated each word. “You’ve been prickly for months.”

It was Phil’s turn to stare mulishly at his coffee mug.

“Who is it?” Clint asked sadly. It may be more than a little masochistic, but he had to know who.

“Who what?” Phil’s eyes darted up from the dark liquid, honest confusion in his face. He had no idea what Clint was talking about.

“Who are you sleeping with?” Clint glowered, hating the whole conversation.

“God, Clint, no! I’m not cheating on you!” Phil almost dropped his mug on the floor in his hurry to put it on the table and move across the couch, closer to his husband. He hesitated before wrapped his arms around the normally strong and steady shoulders of the archer and held him close, only finishing the movement when Clint lent towards him the smallest amount, giving silent consent to the touch.

“I’ve been working on something for Fury.” He said, internally his need to comfort Clint and keep SHIELD’s secrets at war. In the end Clint won out, as he always would. Phil had been so wrapped up in the horrifying results of his latest assignment that he had completely missed what his bad mood was doing to Clint.

Under his arm, Clint began to shake. He had been so worried for weeks that Phil was slipping away from him that the relief that he wasn’t was overwhelming. By the time he had cried himself out, the coffee was long cold, and both of their stomachs were growling painfully, in all of the day’s turmoil neither of them had eaten.

Clint was the first to pull away, scrubbing a hand over his face to try and get rid of the salt and snot.

“We should probably eat before talking anymore.” Phil sat back, giving Clint the space he needed.

Clint nodded and without saying anything else, grabbed a change of clothes and retreated into the bathroom to finish collecting himself. Phil understood, for a long time Clint had to hide his emotions and weaknesses, for his own survival, and it was a hard habit to break.

Clint stayed under the only slightly hotter than tepid water until his fingers and toes closely resembled prunes. Eventually, he climbed out of the shower, but he took his time drying off and getting dressed. He stepped out of the bathroom to see Phil in on the sofa bent over the laptop.

“You went into Riesgraf’s room.” Phil spoke when he heard the door open.

Clint frowned in response, he couldn’t tell if Phil was being complementary or accusatory. “That’s the mission.” He hedged.

Phil instantly saw the unease in his partner, and smiled. “Good work.”

Clint unconsciously unbristled. “Did you wanna?” He indicated the bathroom with a thumb over his shoulder.

“No, thank you. I showered when I changed into the new clothes. Thank you for that by the way, you didn’t have to.” Phil’s thanks were stilted, both still of centre and slightly unsure about where they stood.

He put the laptop aside, half way across the room he extended a hand in invitation. Oddly shy, Clint took it and they left the cabin knowing they had a lot more to talk about but that things were looking up.

= + =

They chose a smaller restaurant for dinner where they didn’t have to share a table with other cruise goers. Neither of them were up to pretending to be real people tonight. They didn’t want to deal with the over-enthusiastic, once in a life time trip, middle class passengers who were  _ so excited _ to meet an older married gay couple, ‘weren’t they just adorable Bob?, or the passive-aggressive homophobia that abounded in the class of people that could afford to take this sort of trip regularly.

They spent the meal in quiet discussion about some renovations they had been considering for the apartment, Phil thought it needed a coat of paint, Clint did not, but they could agree they needed new flooring. Light carpet and SHIELD’s inclination to causing a high frequency of injuries that bled everywhere was not a good combination.

They were out of the restaurant just as the larger dinner crowds started. In unspoken agreement they bustled around the room, resetting the security, brewing two mugs of tea and collecting blankets, the breeze of the ocean was chilly without the sun’s warmth. They got changed into sweats and tee shirts before settling on the balcony.

“The project Fury had me on, is eyes only, no electronic records, there would be no trial just a bullet to the brain. Secret.” Phil started, he spoke quietly, letting the wind take his words away too fast for Clint to have heard him but knowing the other man was reading his lips. “What they did, it’s sick. I put in my final report just before Fury left for London. I told him to shut it down and salt the earth. But I can’t get the images out of my mind.” Phil let his words die. So far he hadn’t said anything classified, if he continued he would.

“Phil, what did he have you doing?” Clint asked, his voice pitched as low as Phil’s.

Even though no one was close enough to hear them if they were shouting, neither of them were willing to risk being over-heard. Looking at each other, trying to let their agent masks go that they had been clinging to far too tightly for too long.

“In 1945 the SSR raided a Hydra bunker.” Phil started the story at the beginning, speaking just loud enough to be heard this time, he didn’t want anything to be lost in lip reading and have to repeat any part of the horrible tale. “Among other things, they found a cryogenically preserved corpse. It was taken to one of their bases and forgotten about. The bunker transitioned into SHIELDs custody and eventually they assigned a group of scientists to begin studying the contents.”

Clint could feel the blood slowly draining from his face, biology wasn’t really his area but he couldn’t think of a single  _ nice _ way this story would end, especially with how on edge Phil had been.

“They were able to synthesis a number of substances out of the corpse.” Phil blanched a little bit every time he said it. The image of the body ripped in half, floating in saline with tubes snaking out of the few patches of undamaged flesh, swam behind his eyelids every time he blinked. “One of them had amazing regenerative properties. Initial testing was able to bring a mouse back from death.”

The long dead, or missing as Phil would insist, Captain America was the only good thing to have ever come out of messing with the regenerative powers of the body. The stories of the giant green monster from Harlem that was whispered between agents was a good example of that. Clint had to force himself to keep breathing, his lungs wanting to seize on the oxygen and not let it out, not disturb the pall that had fallen over them.

“Fury authorised human trials. They used agents who had been critically injured or were dying for some other reason. We all signed away everything when we signed on that dotted line.” He laughed humourlessly. “And god, Clint. At first it worked. They got better.” Phil felt the first tear roll down his cheek. He had known some of those agents, he had been friends with them. A second tear quickly followed the first. “Then it went wrong. They started going crazy. The closer they were to death, the faster the symptoms set in.” The blood streaked walls of Agent Derik’s room haunted his sleep. “They had compulsions to draw this image, over and over. If they didn’t have something to draw with they found something.”

Phil couldn’t explain that, the words wouldn’t come and from Clint’s face, the other man understood. He understood desperation and how far a person would go when driven to something even if that drive wasn’t natural. 

“We had to try something, they couldn’t be left as they were. We wiped their memories, implanted a false life. They will never know who they really are and will spent the rest of their lives being monitored for even the tiniest slip. And I made the call Clint. I’m the one that chose the agents and I’m the one that wiped them away, made it so they had never existed.” Phil’s tears were flowing freely now. There was nothing left to say, and he dropped his head into his hands. Sobbing. Shoulders shaking with the force of his grief and regret for not calling it sooner.

Clint quickly moved from his chair and wedged himself in behind Phil. His legs bracketed Phil’s hips, and his arms wound around his torso. One hand rested against his wildly beating heart and the other across his lower stomach, landing on the opposite hip. Clint pulled Phil in close and let the other man sob. He did would he could to make sure Phil knew he was there, whispering assurances into the other man’s ear and letting his body heat engulf them both. 

Slowly, Phil’s sobs petered off. Sniffling slightly, he turned into Clint and hugged him back. Clint pressed a light kiss to a salty cheek. They would be ok, it would take a little longer and a lot more talking, but they would be ok. 

When Phil’s hold on him lessened, Clint stood them both up. “Come on Babe. Go to bed.”

Phil yawned, his face still hiding in Clint’s shoulder. He could feel the mumble of words against his skin but couldn’t hear anything other than a low murmur.

“What was that?” He shrugged his shoulder, jostling Phil from his hiding spot.

“Coming with?” Phil said again. His voice small with fear that he was going to sleep alone again. They never did that. In their 12 years together, never once had they spent the night apart unless they absolutely had to and it looked like they were heading for a second in a row.

“Not just yet. I need to get into the ship’s systems. We didn’t do it last night. I won’t be long though.” Clint apologised. It had been a job Phil was meant to have done 24 hours ago but knowing what had been weighing on the other man he could understand why he had been a little off his game and didn’t want him to feel even worse about it.

Phil still cringed. He had been an ass, both last night and this morning, and now Clint was having to do his share of the work. “I can…”

“No. Really, it’s ok. Sleep. I’ll be back soon.” Clint pressed a soft kiss to the stubble prickling across Phil’s jaw and quickly squeezed him around his shoulders before stepping away.

“I’ll monitor.” Phil’s jaw clenched in away that told Clint there wouldn’t be any talking him out of it. Either of them could do the breaking and entering that was required in their sleep so obviously that wasn’t Clint’s real reason for not wanting Phil to do it. Which meant he was being coddled. Something he wouldn’t stand for.

Clint pressed a hand into his eyes. He didn’t want to argue with Phil about this, he was in better physical shape to complete the task, so he would do it. “Fine.” He sighed. “But once I’m out of the staff area, go to bed. Please.” He met Phil’s eye squarely, trying to convey that it was concern not annoyance or anything else motivating him.

“Okay.” Phil finally agreed. Drawing the word out into three or four syllables.

It only took Clint a few minutes to change clothes and gather the few bits of equipment he would need to get into the ship’s server. As he efficiently bustled around, Phil stepped back out onto the balcony and gathered their abandoned mugs and blanket, locking the glass door as he came back in. When Clint was stepping out of the cabin door with a jacket thrown over a cleaning uniform, a swiped access card clipped at his hip, Phil was turning on the laptop and patching in to Clint’s specially designed mission hearing aids that would allow them to talk without any bulky radio equipment.

The corridor outside their room still had a few people wandering into and out of their rooms, coming back from a late dinner or heading out to enjoy the night life the cruise boasted.

Leisurely strolling down the corridor he smiled benignly at anyone he passed. With the last couple stepping into their elevator, Clint stripped off his jacket and hid it behind a plant. From there he hunched a little bit, making his shoulders look less threatening and curling over in imitation of the exhausted posture of someone who had been pushing industrial equipment and carrying fresh sheets and towels all day over a massive ship.

The door into the staff areas was tucked unobtrusively at the stern end of the corridor. He was able to slip through it and down four flights of stairs before running into anyone. Stepping out of the stairwell into the dull grey plastic and metal crew hallways, he almost literally ran into a short man in an over sized green hoodie and the miniscule red shorts of a life guard.

The life guard stepped back from the collision and frowned up at Clint. “Who are you?” He asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“I am Vasily.” Clint laced his words with a thick Russian accent. Natasha would have kicked him if she was on the other end of the comms for this. His Russian accent was too rural for her refined Moskovite tastes and she hated when he used it, but with his dark blonde hair and golden tan he would never be able to pass himself off as any of the other nationalities that made up most cruise ship cleaning crews. 

The man’s eyes narrowed further, then widened in understanding. “Oh, gosh!” He slapped a palm against his forehead. “Tomi’s cousin, right?” He kept talking before Clint could answer. “He said you were joining us. I got it in my head it was in the UK next month, sorry. I’m a bit of a spazz. If you need anything, I’m Ollie cabin 215 with Jack and Liam. Anyway, I gotta go. I’m on duty in ten!” The man waved as he hurried down the hall.

The whole exchange only took a minute and it was the easiest almost blown interaction Clint had ever had. Clint blinked after the disappearing Christmas tree for a second before moving again. The server was on the other side of the wall he was walking along, but the only door was on the other side of the room and he had to go all the way to the end of the ship and then back up before he could get to it.

He ran into one other staff, this one a sequin emblazoned performer, who nodded tiredly without questioning his presence. Clint remembered that feeling, the absolute, bone deep exhaustion that came from a string of back to back to back performances that seemed to run one into another in an unending stream of crowds and clapping and practice.

The door into the server room was little obstacle. So far it was turning out to be the easiest B & E Clint had ever perpetrated. Just inside the door, a small desk was bolted to the floor with a laptop bracketed to the table top. He had it open and SHIELD’s password decryption running in seconds. He settled into the chair and waited. The program could take anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes, but normally averaged around the two-minute mark, to get into the system. Clint started whistling ‘off to work to go’ from Snow White. On an early mission he had done it during a moment where he had had to wait for some tech to do its job and the mission had gone smoothly, the next he hadn’t, and things had ended blowing up. Ever since any time he had needed to wait for something to download, or decrypt, or encrypt if he whistled the song everything went smoothly, if he didn’t things go sideways quickly.

Phil swore up and down that it was all in his head, but Clint had grown up around people who were extremely superstitious and then joined the Marines who were almost as bad. He wasn’t willing to tempt fate, even if fate was dictating that he whistles Disney tunes.

“Clint, really?” Phil’s sigh came out as static. 

“Mmhmm. Yup.”

The password screen gave way to the desktop.

“The dwarves work again.” 

Clint lent over the keyboard. He delved into the passenger access cards first. A few minutes of typing got him into the network settings, to find a metric fuck tonne of firewall. What cruise ship needed this sort of internet protection? They still had a connection, it was just filtering everything except the Captain’s emails.

Clint dove into those next. Not wanting to take the time to go over them right now, he started downloading them, and whistling, on to a USB and went back to investigating the network settings.

A minute later the USB flashed a green light and he hadn’t found anything else. At this point he had spent too long down here already. After shutting down the machine, he carefully eased the door open and then closed after he stepped through.

The path back to where he had stashed his jacket was as easy as the path down and the only interaction he had between his jacket and the room was passing a young couple stumbling into the cabin corridors and the guy ‘bro’-ing at him as they passed each other.

All told, Clint was back in the cabin within 45 minutes, most of which had been used trying to make his stroll as casual or exhausted as possible. The only lights in the cabin was a small lamp on the wall beside the sofa and the star light streaming in through the open curtains in the main room.

Phil was already dozing off under the covers. Clint took his time getting ready for bed, making sure to floss and gargle, carefully cleaning and storing his hearing aids, and getting a glass of water for during the night, before finally sliding between the cool sheets. Phil mumbled incoherently at the mattress shifting and then wriggled his way across the bed until he could tangle his legs through Clint’s and hold on tight. In the end, he ended up with his head cushioned on Clint’s chest and their arms wrapped tightly around each other, both needing the reassurance of as much physical contact as they could get.


	15. Day 3: The Calm?

They both slept late the next day. The sun was well above the horizon when movement first stirred the still air. Phil was the first to blink awake, still tightly entwined with Clint who was snoring quietly against Phil’s shoulder. He was happy to stay exactly where he was. The warmth that radiated off the other man was more than would normally be comfortable but after having been without it for so long as he had put distance between them, the warmth was a reminder of the steps they had made the night before to repair the damage.

He watched as Clint began to snuffle his way to wakefulness. Rubbing his face against Phil’s collarbone and then cracking his jaw in a wide yawn. Clint rubbed his warm nose in the juncture of Phil’s shoulder and neck before finally looking up at Phil, blue eyes wide open and awake. He graced Phil with a small smile and kissed him just below the ear.

“Morning.” His voice was rough with sleep.

“Good morning.” Phil’s voice was smoother, not as sleep ruffled.

Clint rolled out of bed, stumbling slight as his feet hit the floor. He needed to hit the bathroom before anything else. Finished answering the call of nature, he stared at the small metal case that held his hearing aids. He didn’t feel like wearing them today and left them where they were.

He lent against the doorway between the main room and the bedroom, admiring Phil’s bare chest. The sheets were bunched up around his waist where he had sat up, leaving a glorious expanse of skin and hair on display.

_ “Go out for coffee or stay in?” _ Clint smoothly flicked his hands through the signs.

_ “Let’s go out.”  _ Phil responded in the same way.

They each moved from their spot. Phil levering himself out of bed, and Clint pushing off the doorframe. Quietly they moved around the room getting dressed. Each time they came within easy touching distance they brushed hands or shoulders or a quick kiss on the cheek, the easy physicality that they only ever shared within their private spaces. Just before they left the cabin, Clint slipped in his hearing aids, if they were actually here on vacation instead of technically on a mission, even if it was an easy one, he wouldn’t have bothered, but they were so he did.

It was a slower start to their day then if they had been at home, but they were still out of the door half an hour after waking up. Instead of hitting the Starbucks on their floor, Phil was able to convince Clint to delay their first caffeine hit for a little bit longer. Just enough to get to the First-Class only café on the top floor.

He had read in the information packet that the barista had won the Barista World Championship in 2008 and Phil was willing to do just about anything to sample coffee that came that highly recommended. While Clint normally would have whined at least a little, just for the sassy quip that it would force out of Phil, they were still on shaky enough ground after the last 24 and a bit hours that he held his tongue.

In the end even Clint had to admit that the coffee was worth the wait. They had been settled into plush armchairs in a corner of the quiet eatery with windows that looked out over the outside areas of the ship. For two hours they had picked at pastries, people watched and moaned over the best coffee either of them had ever had. The time together did a lot to return the quiet, easy stillness that had been central to their relationship. 

By the time they wandered out into the sun, hand in hand, it was lunch time. Only having just finished breakfast, Phil pulled out the schedule of activities that ran day and night.

“Was there anything you wanted to do?” Phil asked, holding the paper between them. Together they decided on a round or three of trivia that was about to start in the Ye Olde English Pub.

As they slowly wound their way down several levels, they quietly discussed the results of the previous night’s foray into Breaking and Entering.

“The only thing I can think is that they are trying to hide something.” Phil mused about the restricted internet. Everything Clint had found, suggested that the firewall was an internal structure, not a hack. Also, why would anyone bother hacking into a cruise ship and only blocking the customers’ internet access? It just didn’t line up.

“But what?” Clint mumbled. “Could be a passenger, someone VIP on board. But that doesn’t really line up, people will just post shit in a few days when we make port.” Clint found it helpful to verbally work through a problem. In the early days with SHIELD when he had worked with other handlers it had been a problem, but Phil was used to the unthinking ramble and had adapted it into his own process.

“Smuggling?” Phil posited.

“Hmm. Maybe.”

They pushed through the dark wood and smoked glass door into a dimly lit tavern great room. All of the tables scattered around the middle of the room were occupied, and about half of the booths along the side wall had people in them. At least four people per table or booth. At the door the two men were greeted by a ship’s entertainment staff.

“Good Afternoon! Trivia is a group game and we like to pair people up! Find a table with a few people and join a group!” The man’s enthusiasm was a little over whelming in the dark hush of the room.

Phil placed a hand on Clint’s lower back and with a nod directed them away. Nothing good would come of letting Clint engaged with someone that happy.

Phil indicated a booth that had an older man, and two young women, though their apparent ages would suggest they were sisters, they looked nothing alike. “Join them, I’ll get us some drinks.”

“Hi. Can my husband and I join you folks?” Clint smiled benignly at the small group.

His words garnered zero reaction from the youngest at the table, her attention fully on her phone. The man grunted something that might have been acceptance. The older of the two young women opened her mouth to answer and looked at him at the same time. The words stalled in her mouth. Her eyes locked on his biceps and her mouth slackened in shock.

“Oh.” She breathed.

The quiet exhalation was what finally dragged the teenager’s attention away from her level of angry birds. She followed the other woman’s line of sight and seeing Clint, rolled her eyes. “God Heather. Stop drooling.” She rolled her dark blue eyes and went back to her game.

Heather tore her eyes off Clint’s arms to glare at the other girl. “Stop bring a brat Kate.” She then turned a megawatt smile at Clint. “Of course, you can join us! The more the merrier.”

Clint snagged an extra chair from the table beside them and leaving it at the end of the booth for Phil, slid into the pleather seat next to Kate.

“I’m Clint, and this is Phil.” He introduced them as Phil approached with two glasses of lemonade.

“Hello.” Phil sat and passed over one of the drinks.

The crackle of the PA system drowned out any further attempts at conversation before the introductions could continue. Phil moved his chair so that he could see the front of the room, conveniently allowing his shoulder to press up against Clint’s.

“Welcome everyone to the best trivia on all of the High Seas!” It was the same chipper employee from earlier. “Each table needs to come up with a team name so we know who is who! There will be seven rounds of ten questions each. Every round will be a little different so make sure you are paying attention.” The man was wandering through the room dispersing papers and pencils as he talked. “There will be prizes for the highest scoring team of each round, and a grand prize for the team that scored the highest overall! The first round will be the easiest, I ask a question and you write it down.”

Throughout the whole explanation, the other man at the table had ignored everyone else at the table and in the room, more interested in the papers he was going over.

“Dad!” Kate tried to get his attention as the first question was asked.

“Derek! Aren’t you going to play?” Heather lent into his side, one hand disappearing below the table.

Kate gagged, pretending to hurl.

“The answer is the Magna Carta.” Phil said as he thoroughly ignored the familial interplay. 

Clint writing it down for the so far nameless team as the small family glowered at each other. 

The second question was asked.

With a huff and rolled eyes, Kate answered this one. “A living person.”

Clint and Phil smiled at her while Heather and Derek continued to stare at each other, trying to have a silent conversation that wasn’t getting much further than Heather pouting attractively and Derek continuing to glower.

By the end of the round Phil, Clint, and Kate had answered all of the questions, Heather had moved from pouting attractively to pouting sullenly, and Derek had returned to scratching his pen across his never-ending stack of papers.

“That’s the end of round one!” The host’s enthusiasm came out a little too loud and the microphone crackled over the words drowning him out. “We will be taking a short 5 minute break and then  _ speed  _ into round two!” He pulled away from the received slightly allowing his words to be understood by the room full of people.

Heather was out of her seat and making a bee line for the bar, fast then Clint could release one of his arrows. The archer snorted into his lemonade when she instantly started flirting with the barman. Phil looked at him askance at the noise, but Clint just shook his head. Not important. Phil graced him with a small smile and then turned to the teenager that had been watching the exchange with interest.

“So, Kate, are you from New York?” He asked.

Clint tuned out of the soft murmur of their conversation, turning his attention to people watching.

The table next to them were one round away from sloshed, laughing uproariously at something one of them said. Across the room a booth bursting with two families, five kids between them, were bickering about which show they wanted to see that night, the youngest girl was going to win. The host and his assistant were huddled over the PA system fiddling with something that Clint didn’t care about. Heather wasn’t at the bar anymore, she was just leaving the pub with a man much closer to her age than Derek’s and neither of them were looking back at the people they were leaving behind.

That could be interesting in a very bad, no good, sort of way when Derek realised. Oh well, not Clint’s problem. Clint’s attention was drawn back to his own table by the pressure of Phil’s hand on his thigh. 

“I think we are starting again.” Phil signed. It was too loud to try and be heard over the hubbub of a full room speaking over each other. 

Clint smiled and turned his hearing aids back up, leaning slightly into Phil’s shoulder in thanks.

“You two have been together a while, hu?” Kate asked.

Phil hummed in agreement even as the speaker crackled with the MC turning his mic back on.

“AND WELCOME BACK! Round two of the Best Trivia in Poseidon’s Realm! Our top three scorers from the first round were…”

A staticky drum roll played.

“The Titanic Swim Team! Trivia Newton John! AND Colours that end in Urple!”

“Wait! What was our name?” Kate asked under the onslaught of noise of two tables loudly celebrating their victories. She had been sure they were going to rock that round. 

Clint coughed unconvincingly. Phil shot him a flat look that was supremely unimpressed at the same time.

“Did you name us Colours that end in Urple?”

Oh wow, the single eyebrow of severe judgement. Clint covered another laugh with another unconvincing cough.

“No?” He asked. An innocent expression that a blind toddler wouldn’t believe on his face.

A delighted giggle cut through their staring contest. Kate was hunched over the table a hand over her face trying to stifle the sound. It wasn’t working very well for her.

Phil sighed, giving up on both of them, and turned his attention back to the host. The next few rounds passed quickly. Their team staying in the top three, the only real stumbling block was a question on the current YA book that everyone was talking about. Clint and Phil didn’t have the time or interest for reading fiction, Dereck still wasn’t paying attention to anything other than his paperwork, it was a toss-up as to whether he had even notices Heather’s departure yet, and Kate hadn’t read it on principle, from what she had heard she was more likely to want to punch the main character in the face then empathise with them so had stayed away.

On the final break between the last round and the results and prizes, Phil went to get them another round while Clint and Kate people watched.

“Soo…” Kate started, and then stopped. After a deep breath, she started again. “Callouses.”

Clint took his eyes off the two kids across the room trying to convince their father to get them icecream after their mother had already said no. He was 100% sure that his face matched her’s for confusion.

“What?” 

She waved her hands around in a way that Clint assumed was purposeful but meant nothing to him.

“Callouses. You have them.” With a sigh she stopped talking again, a look of extreme exasperation passing over her face quickly. 

“I work with my hands.” The words were hesitant, making sure the words he wanted were the words he said.

Her snort was not elegant. It was the first sound that made Derek take his attention off the piles of paper he had surrounded himself with.

“Katherine!” He bit out. “You weren’t raised in a circus, please act accordingly.”

“Hey! What’s wrong with the circus?” Clint said before he could stop himself. It always had been and would always would be a sore point for him that people thought that growing up in the circus automatically equated bad manners or something. The Russian acrobat couple had taught him the language and proper table etiquette thank you very much.

The father and daughter stopped their brewing argument to gape at him. A warm hand on his shoulder stopped him from squirming.

“Drinks will be over in a minute.” Phil slid back into the booth. “What were we discussing?”

The hand moved from resting on his shoulder, moving around his back and coming to a stop on the opposite hip, pulling Clint in against Phil’s broad chest. Phil had overheard the end of the conversation and knew what a hot button topic it was for Clint, hopefully the others were too embarrassed about the exchange to step it out for him.

His assessment was right. Derek huffed and went back to his papers. Kate blushed and stumbled around for words for a second before giving up. Clint was onto him but pressed in closer anyway, thankful that his outburst didn’t need to be explained.

The group were a point of silence in the otherwise booming room. The waiter gave them an odd look as he dropped of their drinks, in his experience if a group was this quiet it was a family in the middle of an argument that they didn’t want other people to hear, but this table lacked the usual awkward avoidance of eye contact that went with public family disagreements. He eyed them curiously but left with a shrug. Whatever. He had a bar full of half-drunk adults and sugar-induced hyperactive children to worry about. Unless they started throwing things the weird table in the back were on their own.

Phil had ordered lemonade for all of them, even Derek. The drinks gave them something to focus on for the short time until the MC called the room to some sort of order.

“Thanks for sticking with us folks! We had a bit of a hiccup with the scoring but we are ready to get on with the show!” 

Phil and Clint could both see the strain in the MC’s shoulders. Mixing alcohol with bad losers, or bad winners, was always the time of the quiz were things could go poorly very quickly. Someone argued their score and someone else disagreed and Sean had seen punches.

“Our third place iiiis!” A recorded drum roll sounded. “The Staten Statistics!!” 

A high-top table right next to the door erupted into cheers. A middle aged soccer mum was pushed forward to collect their winnings, tickets for the whole table to see a show of their choice.  

Once they had settled down, the microphone buzzed to life again. “Second place. Put your hands together foooor!” The drum roll again. “Trivia Newton John!”

The booth full of children and harassed looking parents that Clint had been watching earlier, jumped from their seats. Commendable battle cries coming from some of them, and piercing screeching coming from others. One of the younger boys was sent to collect a pile of VIP passes for the water slides for the kids and tickets to a show for the adults.

They were much quicker to quieten down. The kids crowding around the little boy and excitedly conferring about which slides they were going to go on.

“AND FIRST PLACE!!!!” The mic squealed in protest at the MC’s faux-excited announcement.

Clint grinned up at Phil from his position still resting against his husband’s warm chest. They could both tell how much the poor guy wanted to be out of there. 

“WE HAVE A DRAW!!! CONGRATULATIONS THE TITANTIC SWIM TEAM AND COLOURS THAT END IN URPLE!!”

They rocked at trivia, Clint smiled smugly. Let the other table loudly celebrate, Phil’s arm tightening around Clint’s shoulders in silent pleasure was enough reward for him. Phil’s embrace was only enhanced by the delighted grin Kate threw at them. She hadn’t wanted to go to trivia but relented because sitting around the sundeck watching her dad work and Heather flirt with anything with a pulse sounded even worse. But the two guys she had been teamed with knew their shit and were pretty friendly for old people.

“Kate why don’t you go on up?” Phil offered. They hadn’t been in it to get a prize, just to have some fun and spent time together, something they rarely got to do.

With a picture-perfect shrug of teenage disinterest, Kate hopped over the back of the booth and ambled up to the little stage. She smiled the completely fake but sincere looking smile of a bored debutant for the crowd and ambled back to their little corner.

“We should do this more often.” Clint said.

Phil hummed in response.

“Phil?” Clint questioned. He followed the other man’s line of sight, two men in dark polo shirts were walking with purpose past the window. The shirts looked like a uniform, but didn’t match the light, bright, and fun colours of the ship employees. “Go.”

Without another word, Phil was out of his seat and unobtrusively winding his way through the crowd. Clint watched him go and was getting ready to follow him out when he caught the look Kate was giving him.

Her narrowed eyes flicked between the door and him, assessing the odd interaction. When she noticed his eyes on her, a single eyebrow shot up, clearly asking him ‘what the hell?’

“What?” Clint blinked innocently at her, utilising his ridiculous eyelashes for their one decent use. 

“He just left.” She huffed, waving an affronted hand at the door.

“He saw someone he knew.” Clint lied through his teeth with a ‘what can you do’ shrug.

“Bullshit.” Kate smirked at him, but kept her voice down so as not to attract the disapproving attention of her father who showed no interest in pulling his attention from his papers.

“Fine oh glorious trivia champion, what was it?” He smirked across the table at her, enjoying the interplay.

“Your both secretly international assassins, you’re here on a job, and they were your marks.” She guessed. Leaning into the story she bent close, swept her eyes over the crowd that hadn’t even begun to disperse, and lowered her eyes.

Clint grinned, delighted. He hardly ever got a chance to bullshit with someone other than Phil. without a life and death situation sucking some of the fun out of it. Nat just didn’t get the appeal of spinning tall tales for fun, in her mind they were the job and she didn’t have time for it in her personal life. Sitwell would indulge him if they were working together and it was quiet but the two men didn’t hang out, outside of work.

Point of fact, while both of them sometimes killed people for their jobs, neither of them were, or had ever been, an assassin for hire. Not that he could tell the kid sitting across from him any of that.

“And you think someone paid for us to go on a cruise to kill two dudes in polo-shirts?” He struggled to keep his laugh in.

She pouted playfully at him. “Fine. You are thieves and they are the guards for something you want to steal.” 

“And were would be stash our loot, being that we are on a boat and all?” 

= + =

Phil was a good ten yards and two families behind the Polo-shirts. He was one of the only people on their own and had to be careful not to draw attention. Moving closer and then drifting away he was able to hide his path by pausing at a window display and then dodging quickly around a family. Natural movements.

He was closer to the two men when they stepped into an elevator. The glass walls gave him a great view of them pressing 3, the lowest public deck. They would be slowed by people getting on and off. Phil raced into the stairwell. He thundered down the flights, skipping steps and jumping from one landing to another, building momentum. If he missed them, he would have no way to figure out where they had gone. 

He slammed into the wall of the landing on level four. He needed to slow down before level three or they would hear him coming. Pulling in deep gasps of air he hurried but didn’t catapult himself down the last flight. 

Pressed against the wall he eased the door open, listening intently to the hallway beyond. There was very little noise, someone little, probably a kid, was running away from where Phil was hiding. Below that the heavy step of two fully grown people moved from the sharp click of marble to the softer shush of carpet. 

He had matched them.

Through the thin gap he had opened, he watched. Slowing his breathing and waited. Their footsteps grew. A flicker of black moved across the gap, blocking out the gold and russet that demarcated the accommodation areas of the ship. Then it was gone.

Phil had to either take the risk of being made or losing them. He chose losing them, whatever these guys were up to wasn’t their objective, Riesgraf was. He gave the two men a slow count of three before casually strolling out the door. He swept the area, pretending to be any other vacationer trying to orient themselves. A flash of black disappearing into a staff door.

He couldn’t follow them in there. He didn’t have a pass or the right clothes to pass unnoticed and didn’t have the looks to be able to talk his way out like Clint had the night before. With very little to show for his mad dash down eight flights of stairs, he had to turn around and head back up. For safety’s sake he took the stairs up to floors before moving across to the elevator. He had no reason to be that far down the ship and was happy to avoid any questions.

= + =

Clint was exactly where Phil had left him, tucked into the corner of the small booth in the back of the overcrowded pub. What surprised Phil was that he wasn’t alone. From the doorway, he could see his husband chatting animatedly with a dark-haired woman, Phil assumed it was Kate still. Weaving his way carefully through the crowd that was noticeably drunker than when he had left only fifteen minutes ago, the woman threw her head back laughing. It was Kate, her blue eyes scrunched closed as her whole body shook with the force of her laugh. 

Phil could feel a soft smile flitting across his lips at the smug happiness that was shining from Clint’s eyes. Phil could tell the instant the archer saw him, the blonde man’s eyes transforming from the smug happiness that still held a touch of restraint and distrust, into warm, completely open welcome. Phil’s smile grew in response, becoming as open as the Senior Agent ever emoted while in anything other than the absolute privacy of their home.

Kate turned at the chance on Clint’s face. “Secret Agent! You’re back!” She called when she saw Phil making his way over.

Phil raised a single questioning eyebrow at Clint. Had he really told a teenager who they were?

“She’s been trying to guess where you ran off to.” Clint explained, his bright grin still firmly in place.

“And you instantly went to secret agent?” He turned the judgemental eyebrow on the grinning teen.

“Nope. Started with assassin.” 

Phil let the eyebrow fall and his smile to grow again. It was good to see Clint having a chance to have some fun.

“I knew one of them from my army days.” Phil lied easily.

Phil slid back into the booth and the three of them fell back into conversation that was made easier by Derek having left at some point while Phil had been fruitlessly chasing thugs around the ship. The interior room and artificial lights suspending time as conversation and cold soda flowed freely. The three of them only parting as Kate had to race off to make sure she wasn’t late for dinner with her family. 

“Dinner?” Phil asked without making any move to let Clint out of the booth or get up himself.

“Sure.” Clint agreed, also not moving a muscle. He was comfortable where he was, lounging, boneless, wedged into the corner of the booth and wall.

Phil settled back against Clint’s warm side and they fell quiet. Each lost in their own thoughts, watching the world pass around them as they enjoyed the quiet bubble they had made around themselves. 

“So, Kate said something.” Clint was the first to break their silence. His voice more of a rumble against Phil’s shoulder than a sound that was audible over the loud room.

Phil just waited. The other man could follow that up with the fact that bees didn’t have lungs, or that Riesgraf was a personal friend of her father’s and she could give them all the intel they could want for the rest of time. It was a toss-up.

“Smuggling.” Was the absolutely un-enlightening follow up that finally got Phil to move.

He sat up a little to be able to see the other man’s face. “What?” The confusion was loud in his voice and his face. Phil pushed himself out of the bench seat and then dragged the other man out after him when Clint just pouted at him.

Once upright, he started talking again. Keeping his voice low to stop the people around them from over hearing what they were talking about. “Smuggling. Ok, well.  _ She _ suggested we were the smugglers and you were checking in with the thugs we had guarding the cargo. But what if she wasn’t completely wrong? What if someone was using the ship to smuggle something?” As he talked, his hands got in on the action. Signing some words that he wanted to emphasis and waving around to encompass the vessel they were on during others. 

Phil hummed, thinking it through. It would explain the restricted external communication no matter that the crew had apologised and explained it away as a broken part. It would also explain why those two men who obviously weren’t regular staff had easy access to a restricted area that if his memory of the ships layout was correct, led almost directly to the cargo hold.

“Do you think Vasily might like to go for another walk tonight?” Phil asked.

Clint’s smile was shark-like, all teeth and no actual joy. “I’m sure I can talk him into it.”

Once they had finally fought their way out of the ever increasing crowd in the pub, they turned their feet to the main dining room without having to discuss it. The multi-story open plan dining room was bursting with people. They had accidentally arrived during the peak of the meal time and the noise was unlike anything either of them had ever heard. The levels were reminiscent of a large sporting match but without the focus to direct the energy. Or an explosion that never ended.

As Phil was talking to the maître de, Clint turned his hearing aids off. In these conditions, with voices and the clash of cutlery and crockery bouncing endlessly around the room, they would be worse than useless and experience told him he would end up with a pounding headache if he left them on. First one family and then another was waved through before them.

“Why?” Clint signed, indicating the back of the people passing them.

“I asked for a table against the wall. Didn’t want to be in the middle of the room.” Phil signed back. Of the two of them, Phil had held on to more of the ingrained habits from their service days. Clint understood, Phil had been in longer and seen more action then him. It was a standing agreement between them that as long as it didn’t compromise the mission, Phil got to choose where they sat as long as they both got the sightlines they needed to be comfortable. If it did compromise the mission he had to deal with it.

Eventually two seats at a four seater against the wall, with a spectacular view of the almost set sun on the horizon, opened up. The old couple half way through their meal took one look at their interlocked hands, sniffed and ignored them.

It was a quiet start to dinner for the two men, especially when surrounded by the otherwise boisterous crowd. When the waiter came Clint pointed at what he wanted and Phil ordered for them both. There was no way he was going to be able to regulate his volume in the chaos of the dining room. The couple across from them hardly exchanged any words between themselves and with Clint’s hearing aids off and their hands occupied with cutlery there was no other way for them to talk. 

Mercifully the older couple left just as their main course arrived. Clint was cutting into his medium steak when a bouncing mid-twenties couple on their honeymoon was shown to their table. Clint could feel the rumble of Phil’s voice through their points of contact down the sides of their bodies but didn’t try to keep up with the conversation. He could lip read the couple but not Phil and couldn’t respond anyway so why bother?

It was with relief that Clint turned his hearing aids back on as they left the dining room that wasn’t close to slowing down yet. Being unable to hear in an unfamiliar was only marginally better than the debilitating headache he would have gotten if he had left them on.

“Drink?” Phil asked.

“Please.” Neither of them were drinkers and if they were actually on the holiday they were pretending to have, they probably wouldn’t have even made the pretence of going for drink, but even as much as they were allowing themselves the luxury of relaxing and starting re-connect, they were on mission and needed to play their roles.

They ambled their way up the decks. Smiling congenitally with people they made eye-contact with and stopping to watch a ‘busker’ playing a violin in the garden boardwalk Clint had seen on the first day. Between the impromptu concert and Clint being diverted by ice-cream, the stars were out in full force and a good number of couples were drunkenly swaying on the dance floor of the open roof bar.

Clint orders them each a top shelf whiskey while Phil watched the people swirl around them. Without the confines of a roof and the music more on the jazz end, the atmosphere was relaxed and the night air was like molasses, everything moving slow and easy through its thick embrace. Clint accepted the two glasses, one on the rock for Phil and one straight for himself, and they moved to the end of the bar. Claiming the last two stools they settled into quiet thought. Each watching the people moving around them and slowly sipping at the silky, spice of their drinks.

“Isn’t that Gina?” Clint called Phil attention away from contemplating needing a barrel of the whiskey Clint had ordered them.

“Where?” Phil scanned the room, not seeing the distinctive dark red of Riesgraf’s wife.

Clint indicated the other side of the room with a subtle finger. “Over there.” Phil finally caught sight of the woman and their target when a clearly intoxicated twenty-something bodybuilder wannabe stumbled out of their line of sight.

“That’s them.” His confirmation was drowned out in a sudden upswing in noise.

“THE FUCK DID YOU SAY?” A voice roared, the drunken slur easily audible over the thrumming bass. It was the twenty-something in a too tight shirt that had been blocking Phil’s view yelling at the shorter accountant they were stalking. The screaming man was looming over Riesgraf.

Clint slid from his seat, smooth as the alcohol they had been enjoying. With most of the crowd focused on the growing confrontation, it was child’s play for the two spies to move between the people unnoticed. Clint got to the front first, putting him in a prime position to seen the drunk gym rat swing and hit Riesgraf square in the face.

Jumping across the short distance between them, Clint put himself in the path of the next swing. The crunch of bone was sickening in the previously loud room. The crowd having fallen mostly quiet as the first yell had caught people’s attention.

Phil watched as a spray of blood burst from his husband’s nose. Clint stumbling back half a step from the punch landing while he was still moving, the tiniest bit unsteady on his feet allowing even a man with no training to move him. The loss of balance didn’t keep him out of the scuffle for long. A quick hand darted out and pulled Riesgraf out of the way even as the accountant tried to get back into the fray. Clint used the hand wrapped in the smaller man’s collar to propel Riesgraf out of the line of fire. At the same time stepping forward and ducking under the next punch. Coming up well within the other man’s reach and driving a balled fist up and in, forcing the breath out of the drunk brawler’s lungs. 

With a single hit, Clint ended the fight. Just in time for the ship’s security to rush the three men. The new arrivals decided that taking everyone to the floor and sorting it out later was the better option. Phil could see the logic in it, a brawl on a ship could end very badly, even though there were no easy access to open air, and subsequent risk of involuntarily disembarking the vessel in the middle of the ocean, from the bar, it was probably standing orders for them.

After a reflective second of struggling, Clint stilled, allowing the security guards to hold him on the slightly sticky floor. Reisgraf also went down quietly, grumbling a little about being on the floor but not struggling. The instigator wasn’t so easy. He was still fighting to pull in air after Clint’s surgical attack, but it didn’t stop him from struggling against multiple pairs of restaining hands. With Riesgraf and Clint co-operating, one of the two men on each of them moved across to the third fighter. With a person weighing down each arm and leg, the man finally stopped. Huffing for oxygen he grumbled but was still. 

With the chaos contained, the crowd was losing interest and returning to their forgotten drinks and flirtations. The three men were levered off the ground, but careful hands kept a steady grip on their arms, keeping them from lashing out again. Phil’s first good look at Clint’s face had him sighing. Blood caked on cheek and his chin, it was still dripping bright red from a clearly broken nose, and purple bruises were blooming around both eyes. That had been one hell of a lucky shot. 

“Does anyone know these men?” The man Phil assumed was the lead security guard asked. His voice was expertly pitched to carry across the hubbub of the crowded room but still be understandable.

Phil and Gina stepped forward at the same time. “That’s my husband.” She said waving at Aldis. “I’m married to this idiot.” Phil allowed a small smirk to tick his lips up. Clint’s responding pout was not cute, instead it was more than a little grotesque with the mix of wet and dry blood coating half his face.

“My brother.” A blonde about the same age as the fight’s instigator huffed, still half hidden in the last of the voyeurs. An exaggerated eye roll accompanied the words.

“If you could all come with us please.” The boss, turned and began moving, a couple of his people clearing the way for the group to troupe out of the room.

They made an interesting parade through the ship. Black clad security and blood spattered guests. They didn’t all fit in the elevator, the fight’s instigator and his pouting sister went in one car with a good chunk of the guards, while Aldis, Gina, Clint, Phil, the head of security and another guard piled into another. Aldis and Gina were talking quietly, the man hadn’t suffered irreparable harm in the altercation and was assuring his wife of such. 

Clint threw a shrug in response to Phil’s single eyebrow raise but otherwise the two SHIELD Agents stayed quiet. Clint had enough experience being hurt and Phil had enough watching Clint get hurt that this was old hat for both of them. Thought, privately Phil appreciated the lack of grumbling about going to get medical treatment. If they had been on base or at home, he would already by complaining that he could put his nose back in place just fine and didn’t need some doctor to do it for him who would then try and run a concussion panel and bloodwork and probably keep him overnight for observation.

Blood still leaking from his nose, Clint was the first dragged in to see the doctor. He was with the doctor for almost half an hour, while the rest of the group stood around in awkward silence. Eventually the door opened, Clint came back out, his face clean-ish, a bandage stuck across the bridge of his nose and an icepack held to half of his face.

The drunken brawler went in next, lacerated knuckles were the only lasting injury he had but they were still open wounds and the ship needed to cover themselves and have him seen to. The main security guard approached Clint and Phil where they were lent against the wall.

“Can you two gentlemen come with me?” He held out an arm in the direction he wanted them to go.

“M’kay.” Clint slurred the tiniest bit.

Phil took a closer look at his husband. He looked fine, other than the bruising, but Phil knew his husband, really knew him and his eyes were glazed over in a very particular way. They had doped him. This was going to be interesting. They were lead into a small office, a small table bolted to the floor and three chairs. There wasn’t room for anything else. Not even standing room for all three of them. Phil had to wait until the other two men were seated before he could get in and close the door.

“I’m Jeff. I just have a few questions about what happened tonight. We need to  make sure the other passengers are safe. I hope you understand.” As he talked, Jeff was pulling forms out of the desk and sorting them into two piles.

Clint hummed noncommittally.

“Of course, we’re happy to help.” Phil spoke over the drunk sound.

The two piles of paper were perfectly square and exactly two inches from the edge of the desk. In Phil, it would have been his own exacting standards slipping past his control. On Jeff, whose hair was in disarray and pants looked like they hadn’t seen an iron since leaving the shop, it was a delay tactic. Phil just hadn’t figured out why he was delaying.

Jeff cleared his throat. “Let’s get started then.”

Or maybe he just wasn’t used to interviewing people. Phil couldn’t imagine there was much need on a cruise ship.

“When did you arrive in the Starlight?” Jeff had his pen hovering over the first sheet of paper, waiting to take notes.

“I’m not sure exactly. We hadn’t been there long. Just gotten a drink when we heard someone yelling.” Phil spoke quickly, Clint had also opened his mouth but anything he added wouldn’t be relevant and could burn them.

“Ok. And did you seen who was yelling? Or hear what about?” Jeff had scratched a few lines onto the clean, white paper. Nodding along to Phil’s answer.

Phil answered that question and the next and the next. Stepping Jeff through the short fight, doing his best to keep Clint quiet. He wasn’t always successful, the doped up man broke in at one point to wax poetic about Phil’s arms. It wasn’t a long or well executed interview, but it didn’t need to be.

Stepping out of the cramped room into the utilitarian corridor, Phil had to keep an arm around Clint’s waist to steady him.

“Mmh, you’re pretty.” Clint mumbled, laying his head on Phil’s shoulder. “I  _ like _ you.”

“I like you to.” Phil chuckled.

The corridor was empty of other people. Phil assumed they had been whisked away for their own interviews. He also didn’t care. All he wanted to do was get Clint backup to their room and tucked up in bed.

Clint kept up his mumbled praise and sweet nothings as they got into the elevator, rode up the levels and stumbled their way to their room. Some of it got a little NSFW and Phil’s ears were burning red as he fumbled the keycard into the door.

With the door shut behind them, Phil released the breath he had been holding in the bottom of his chest. A mild anxiety that Clint would start spouting classified information in the crowded elevator car had held his breath captive. Luckily for them both, he had kept his drugged babble to wooing his husband who had been well and truly wooed more than a decade ago.

Clint dropped onto the end of the mattress, bouncing a few times from the force of his boneless flop. “This might sound controversial, but I think that went well.” He was smiling at the ceiling dopily. 

“How did that go well? You have a broken nose.” Phil puttered around the room, orbiting the other man. With him out of commission he didn’t want to move to far away.

“But not a broken hand!” Clint waved them both in the air to demonstrate that they were intact.

Phil knelt at the end of the bed and wrestled Clint’s shoes off. With firm but soothing hands, he stripped his giggling husband and tucked him in under the sheets. Following him in after locking up and changing his own clothes.

“But the maybe-smugglers?” Clint muttered as he was drifting off to sleep.

Phil didn’t get a chance to answer before Clint’s breathing had evened out in sleep. Neither of them were going anywhere tonight and neither was whatever was being hidden in the cargo holds. Whether it was still there tomorrow night who knew. There was a chance that the holds would be emptied when the ship put into port in a few hours. A smuggling operation wasn’t their mission though, Reisgraf was.


	16. Day 4: Through the looking Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please note the change in rating, the end of this chapter has a sex scene.

Waves of nausea woke Clint early the next morning. Lying flat on his back, with Phil sleeping pressed against his side with his head on Clint’s shoulder, he tried to fight his rolling stomach into submission. It didn’t work. A strong wave tried to push his stomach out of his mouth. Bolting for the bathroom, he made it just in time. Bile burnt its way up his throat.

A sudden loss of his pillow and the sound of retching wasn’t the way Phil enjoyed waking up early on a Saturday morning. The abrupt return to consciousness left him confused for a second. Long enough that the retching had grown into liquid hitting liquid. Clint. Phil sprung from bed and raced the short distance to the bathroom. Taking in the scene before him, he went to the sink first, filling a cup with cold water and wetting a washcloth. The water went on the edge of the vanity, and the cool washcloth on the back of Clint’s neck.

“Phil?” Clint whimpered.

Phil rubbed a soothing hand up and down his back. “I’m here Sweetheart.”

Clint threw up again. They must have given him Codeine. It always made him loopy and then sick. How they got Clint to agree to take it was the more perplexing question.

“Feel sick.” Clint mumbled as he slumped against the cool moulded plastic walls.

“I know. Come on. Let’s get you back to bed.” Phil wound his arm under Clint’s and heaved them both off the floor. 

He held him up as Clint washed out his mouth and brushed his teeth. Together, they shambled their way back to the rumpled bed. Phil left Clint sitting on his side of the bed, washcloth still draped around his neck. Rifling through the kitchen counters he found a large container, why a kitchenette on a cruise ship had a large Tupperware he didn’t know but it would serve his purpose. Taking it and a bottle of water back into the bedroom he got Clint settled back down. If he could fall back to sleep, he would sleep through the worst of it and be ok in a few hours.

“I’m going to see if the doctor has anything to help.” Phil ran his hand through Clint’s golden hair, pushing it off his sweaty forehead.

Clint fell asleep halfway through his nod. Phil pulled on one of the pairs of jeans that Clint had got for him at the start of the trip, and one of Clint’s sweaters. Swimming slightly in the fabric he left the suite. The public area of the ship was empty of guests. Two pairs of cleaners were the only other people in sight. It was much earlier than Phil had realised.

There was no wait for the elevator car and no stops on the way down to the medical office. A trip that had taken five minutes the night before, took thirty seconds. The lower floor was just as quiet. Hu, maybe he would have a chance to find out what was being smuggled after all. Phil stopped in with the doctor first, he could say he just got turned around if anyone challenged him. With a box of scopolamine in hand, he walked with purpose down the corridor. 

Away from the elevators.

A door at the end of the hallways let into the staff area, without the pre-planning of their earlier backstage jaunt, he had to make do with the lockpicks he always had stashed somewhere. It took twenty seconds to get through the door. He was frowning at the lock when it finally clicked open, it shouldn’t have taken him that long, he was out of practice. Too much time spent behind a desk. He could feel the mental Clint that he carried with him always cackling.

Phil ignored the imaginary Clint and strode through the plain hallway with Purpose. The hallway wasn’t long, twenty feet at most and he was in the crew stairwell going down one flight to get to the level he had followed the men to the afternoon before. The corridors were a rabbit warren. Twisting and turning back on themselves around spaces that didn’t seem big enough to hold anything but was always stuffed full of something. One time it was costumes for the stage productions, the next it was pool toys. All the things a cruise needed to be successful but slowed a spy down in his hunt for wherever it was the two men had been going yesterday.

Every creak of metal was a crew member coming out of their cabin to see him, every dull crash of a wave against the hull was a shout of surprise and accusation as security found him snooping. The seventh door he tried opened into another storage area. This time it wasn’t full with the detritus of the high seas. Unlabeled crates were stacked floor to ceiling, wall to wall in the ten by ten foot space.

Carefully he pried off the lid of the crate closest to him. White boxes had been trused inside. Trying to get one of the boxes out without damaging the surrounding ones was more difficult than it should have been. They were packed in as tightly as sardines, but he didn’t want to leave any evidence that he had been there. 

Eventually with the help of his fingernails, he was able to get one free. Turning to box over in his hand, he could see the dark blue writing on one side. Oxicodone. Phil knew that there was a healthy black market on prescription drugs running from the US into the Caribbean states, but SHIELD had never been interested in them and he knew little more than that it happened. He also didn’t particularly care about it right now, except for what effect it would have on his own operation.

The box went back in its spot and he re-affixed the lid. With the door locked behind him, there was nothing to suggest he had been there. Back through the halls he went, moving purposefully but not rushing. At the same time as he was easing the stairwell door closed behind him, a door clanged open and the sound of conversation echoed down the hall. He made it just in time.

Up two floors and out into the public areas he started breathing properly again. There were still no other guests around. The corridor full of cabin doors was quiet in the early morning stillness. He was back in their suite within minutes. Box of Haldol almost forgotten in one hand.

= + =

Too wired to go back to sleep, he set the coffee machine brewing and settled on the balcony to watch the large boat pull into the harbour that didn’t look big enough to accommodate it. Sunlight burnished his skin as he waited for Clint to wake up. The only sounds from the room behind him was Clint snuffling every now and again as he rolled over in his sleep. Phil could picture the other man’s wide shoulders taking up more than his fair share of the bed, an arm flung out searching for Phil. Or maybe he had huddled himself around Phil’s abandoned pillow, face smushed to the fabric, searching for any lingering trace of Phil’s sent. He had seen both so many times over the years that he could see it all in detail.

In front of him, the call of seabirds and fishermen mixed to create a white noise of ‘seaside’ that was lulling. There was no upswing of shouting or chaos to break the relaxing spell it was weaving around him. Sitting in the warm sun, a mug of excellent coffee in one hand, his husband safe and mostly ok behind him, and nothing to send his mind in a million directions, he settled fully into the lounge chair and drifted off. Not full asleep but not awake either. As relaxed as he could get outside of their locked and double locked apartment back in New York that only two other people knew about. 

The sounds behind him changed, subtly. It wasn’t enough to having him emerge from his half doze, but it meant he didn’t jump when a warm, callused hand landed on his shoulder. Phil allowed his head to drop down and nuzzle against the golden skin.

Clint came around the chair and lent down, pressing a quick closed mouthed kiss to Phil’s lips. He would have been disappointed in the lack of follow through except he hadn’t heard any water running and until he knew Clint had brushed his teeth again, he appreciated the restraint.

“Morning.” Clint stole Phil’s coffee, taking the other lounge chair.

“Good morning. How are you feeling? I have some Haldol if you need it.” Phil stole his coffee back. If Clint wasn’t feeling well, Phil would get him a mug of his own coffee, but if he was Clint could walk the five steps back inside and fill his own cup.

“Yeah, yeah.” Clint knew the routine. Gracefully swinging himself from his seat, he ambled back inside.

Phil watched him go. Both to see how he was moving, that he wasn’t hiding injury or illness, not that he had done that in years but it had long become habit. The other reason was just to watch his ass. It was a nice ass after all. He came back with his own mug and the rest of the pot, filling Phil’s mug up before draping himself across the other seat.

“What are we doing today?” Clint asked knowing that Phil had the possible itineraries memorised and Clint had zero opinion on how they spend their day.

“There’s a Coffee Roadtrip excursion that I thought might be interesting.” If it had been Phil on his own, he probably would have opted for the Old City walking tour, but Clint would lose interest within fifteen minutes and untold chaos would ensue.

Clint narrowed his eyes at Phil, that sounded too easy. They both loved coffee and a tour about coffee sounded amazing, if there were tastings he would lose his mind. And if it was boring, Clint could spend his time groping Phil in the cover of a crowd, see how many times he could do it before the other man started giving him The Look™. Win-win.

“Sounds good.” Clint grinned, stretching enough to show off his abs. Gotcha. Phil looked. Clint’s grin spread wider.

If Phil had been any less sun warmed and relaxed, he would have wondered at the quick acquiescence, as it was, he wasn’t going to question it. 

= + =

They stepped off the boat hand in hand. The transition from swaying boat to stable land had them both walking a little fun for a few steps. Around them other passengers were having more difficulty re-adjusting. Stumbling and swaying as they walked down the pier.

A group of locals were clustered at the end of the pier, chatting and drinking coffee, signs lent against their legs as they waited. Seeing the approaching cruise goers, the said their goodbyes and picked up their signs and spread out. Each of them were collecting people for different tours and experiences, the Coffee Roadtrip man was the third from the right. He was smiling, but his eyes were bored, he had seen thousands of tourists come and go, given the same talk a hundred or more times. 

Clint and Phil slowly made their way towards him, a small group was beginning to form around their tour guide. The two spies took their time getting there, assessing the people they were going to spend the day with. 

The first two to arrive were a young couple, the way they were draped across each other screamed newly-weds. The next was an older couple, pensioners on the trip of their lives. Just before Phil and Clint arrived, a family of four stopped beside the rest of the group. The mother looked eager, the mastermind of their family unit, the father smiled indulgently at his wife, the two kids could be a problem. Already bored, the boy was sniping at his little sister. 

Once they had stopped behind the honeymooners, the guide put down his sign.

“ Buenos días. Mi nombre es Carlos. Good morning. My name is Carlos. Welcome to San Juan. We will be starting our tour at the Coffee Museum in Ciales. It is one hour and a half drive to this mountain village.” Carlos ushered them onto the bus.

He drove them out of the city, pointing out historic buildings and giving a quick run down of their importance to the island. Out of town he fell silent, letting them chat or watch the scenery as they each wanted.

Clint was sitting in the aisle seat at the front of the mini-bus. Using the inbuilt excuse of his seat, he pressed up against Phil pointing out birds or pretty flowers that his sharp eyesight caught before Phil could. Phil pressed back into Clint’s warmth, he enjoyed being able to be open with their affection. Resting his cheek against Clint’s neck, he pressed a kiss to the skin just below his ear. Sitting so close, he felt a shiver run down the other man’s body. Out of the corner of his eye, Phil could see the soft smile on Clint’s face. 

Clint was about to say something when a flash of deep purple distracted him. “OH! An  Antillean Mango.”

“A fruit?” The fact that a fruit was alluring enough to distract Clint from their little game of PDA chicken was ego-bruising.

“No it’s a bird. There. In the spikey tree.” Clint knowing the name of a bird by sight but not the tree it was sitting in wasn’t surprising at all. Nor was Phil being unable to spot it no matter how much Clint tired to point it out. His eyes just weren’t as good as Clint’s.

Playing grab ass and spot the bird got them through the drive. Carlos pulled them to a stop in front of a building painted moss green. Three wooden signs on the wall advertised the museum in Spanish, letting visitors know it was established in 1850 and where the entrance was.

It was a plain building, without the signs most people would have walked right by it, not realising it was there.

“Come. There will be a guided tour and then a chance to try some of the local beans!” Carlos was sounding a bit more enthusiastic. Whether it was just a matter of him being more awake, or the thought of handing them off to the guide inside, his smile reached his eyes this time.

Phil found the tour fascinating. Clint was bored ten minutes into it, he couldn’t quite hear the guide properly over the rustle of clothes and murmur of a different group that had started their tour just before them. He could have lip read, but the man turned his vowels in a funny way that just seemed too much effort to follow. Phil would translate for him if he asked, but as he didn’t care all that much about what was being said and Phil did, better to let him enjoy the talk. Clint would just look forward to the tasting after.

Clint spent the next fifteen slipping coffee beans out of barrels they passed and pinging them off the other guests. As the grumpy teenager swatted his neck for the third time, looking around for the bug that wouldn’t leave him alone, Phil took Clint’s hand and pulled him in against his side.

“Leave them alone.”

“What?” Clint fluttered his eyes, overdoing the innocent expression by at least 25%.

“One day someone is going to throw harder than you. Then what will you do?” Phil murmured, sounding more like a warm hum than actual words in Clint’s hearing aids.

It settled him for a while, soaking warmth up from Phil. Not actually wanting to annoy the other people, he dropped his mind down into the still water of his mission mindset. There wasn’t space for boredom in the traditional sense when the cool waters soothed the irritation of long hours. He was still got bored but he could focus it, and it didn’t itch in the way it normally did. Instead, he saw everything, was able to keep his people safe. 

Cool water got him through the second half of the tour. 

= + =

Phil was fascinated. The slow growth from production on a local scale, to being the seventh largest growers in the world and the subsequent decline. The effect of the change of demographics had on the agricultural patterns of the island were captivating. He could tell Clint was bored, even after he stopped pelting people with dried coffee beans, he shifted from foot to foot, eyes shifting through every movement from the other people. Phil recognised the behaviour and left him to it, if it got them through the tour he would be happy. The rest of the day would be more interesting for Clint.

“New Hacienda have been opening across the island since the mid-2000s. Mainly in the Cordillera Central where volcanic soil allows us to grow rich coffee.” The guide had brought them full circle back to the entrance where a coffee tasting counter and gift shop took up most of the space.

The scent of strong black coffee infused the room, even more than it had the rest of the building. Drawing people across to the steaming pots behind signs with the grower information for each brew. The strong aroma lured Clint from his mental disconnect. 

“Clint.” Phil drew his attention more by the hand on his lower back and the use of his name.

“Yep.” Only half of Clint’s attention was on Phil, the active part of his brain was on trying all of the coffee. Man, Jasper was going to be so jealous.

“I’m going to try and call the office.” That got Clint’s attention. His sharp eyes swung from the bar towards Phil, worry deep in their depths. “Just let them know we are ok.” As he said it, he realised that he hadn’t filled the other man in on his early morning B&E.

“I’ll get you some samples.” The worry had drained.

Phil used the distraction of the tasting to slip away. A block down the road, a single phone booth sat graffiti’ed on the corner. He nodded to the few people he passed, exuding his bland nothing to see here exterior that never failed to turn him invisible. The old machine took his coins after a bit of a fight. He dialled through to an automatic voicemail, typing in his access codes as the system an through its verification processes. Waiting for it approve him was an age. The antiquated phone booth struggling to integrate with the advanced technology back at base.

Eventually he was able to leave a quick all clear message. Someone, probably Kardel their analyst for this op, would get it and pass it on to whoever cared. Which meant Jasper. The poor man was probably pulling out his non-existent hair at this point, not having contact with his teams was not his happy place.

Phil resumed his spot next to Clint, unnoticed, as the sales woman was extoling the virtues of one of the brews. Clint pressed a cup into Phil hand.

“It’s her family’s farm, but it’s awesome! I’ve already got some.” He waved a brown paper and aluminium bag around.

“How many of those have you had?” Phil nodded at the empty cup in Clint’s other hand. From the brightness of his eyes and width of his smile, he would guess a lot.

= + =

“Two.” He lied. He didn’t think Phil believed him. But there was no way Phil would believe he had only had one and any more than two and the judgement would be fierce, like that time he decided that putting a mole rat in Wilson’s tent in Serbia was a good idea. He had thought it was funny and Sheridan had agreed, Wilson, and Phil who was sharing with him, hadn’t found it as hilarious.

Yep, there it was. An eyebrow went up.

“Thr…four.” The second eyebrow had gone up before he had even finished the first word. His mind was jittering across thoughts, unable to follow any stream to its conclusion. “I had four. I think. I don’t know. Its so good. Try it.” Why wasn’t Phil drinking? Maybe he didn’t like the smell of that one.

Clint broke away from Phil to get him one of the other drinks. There was one that tasted cinnamony and Phil liked cinnamon. He pressed the new cup into Phil’s free hand. But maybe he wasn’t feeling festive? Cinnamon was festive right? That was a thing.

= + =

Before Phil quite knew what was happening, Clint had pressed more cup than he had hands on him. Leaving Phil to sip from each of them with no idea which was which and juggling to almost full cups.

“Clint. Stop. This one is nice.” Phil was fifty percent sure it was the first one he had been handed, or it could have been the fifth.

Clint took the cup from him and drank it down, humming in approval. Because what he needed was more caffeine. The hum came out odd between the liquid and the broken nose.

“That was my favourite to!” He waved the bag of beans again.

It had been the first of the cups.

“Atención. It is time to get back on the bus. Everyone this way please.” Carlos called over the noise of twelve people talking over each other.

The group trouped back onto the bus in a straggling line. The siblings at the end had put aside their differences for the time-being, focusing their excess attention on their dad’s phone instead.

The van was stifling in the heat and humidity of the tropics in summer. The windows barely opened, an inch of air flowing in as the van trundled down the road, quickly being swallowed by the dense foliage. The time they spent in the never ending green tinged dusk was endless and over in a second. Unable to see the sky above, there was no natural way to feel the time passing.

Phil and Clint spent it leaning into each other. Clint chattering away about an article he wanted to write about the correlation between hummingbird hovering mechanics and the quin-jets’ hover capability. Phil was more than half convinced it was a thought brought on by over-caffeination and when it wore off the other man wouldn’t even remember the conversation. It was still soothing to listen to. Clint’s long fingers traced symbols onto Phil’s pant leg as he described a particular equation he thought would support his theory.

The drive through the mountains took them through several small villages, the people they passed looked happy but uninterested in the tour bus. Eventually, the driver slowed to take turn onto a dirt road almost overgrown with foliage.

“Welcome to La Piedra Escrita. We will have an hour to stop here. A picnic is provided for lunch. I will take those interested on a short walk to see petroglyphs or the river is beautiful and cool if you prefer to swim.”

The sound of fast, rushing water almost drowned out the end of the announcement and anything else he might have wanted to say was lost under the awed ooohs and aaaahs of the passengers. The forest had suddenly pulled back from the road to show a small clearing leading down to the river and a perfect view of a sun dappled waterfall. The light creating a bright rainbow through the spray. It looked so surreal it would have been more believable as a movie set than an actual place, everything just a little too saturated with colour.

A different mini-bus of tourists had beaten them there, the people spread out. Some of them lounging about on the chairs on the green grass, a few were splashing around in the water, and a small handful clustered around the tables laden with food arranged along one side of the manmade clearing.

From the slight tension in Clint’s body, Phil knew he was doing the same threat assessment he was doing. Who was visible, who  _ wasn’t _ visible, were there any weapons or anything that could be turned into weapons. Phil finished checking the area before Clint, his eyes not as good, but didn’t relax until Clint did.

Assessment finished, they followed the rest of the tour out into the oppressive humidity of the clearing. They kept close to each other, not because of any threat but just because they could. There wasn’t any need to hide and while neither of them would ever be big on PDA, being able to lean into each other was novel enough to satisfy them both.

“Swim?” Clint asked, eyeing the crystal clear water.

Phil frowned, throwing a wistful look at where the retired couple and the mother of the family had gathered around Carlos, waiting to see if anyone else was going to join them.

Clint didn’t miss the lingering look. “Or we could go and see the petroglyphs.” He offered grudgingly.  He wanted to get out of the heat, but he could always swim on the boat later. The blinding smile from Phil made up for it, and if the older couple were coming it wouldn’t be a strenuous walk. They joined the group.

Lead through a short cut out in the forest, they walked a short semi-circle and were back at the river, slightly up stream from where they started. They were right at the bottom of the waterfall, Clint could see through the rushing water that there was a shallow cave behind but he doubted anyone else would be able to spot it, not unless they were a lot closer. To their left a wooden set of stairs zigzagged their way to the top of the short but steep slope. A boardwalk continued along the top. It wasn’t the fastest ascent in the history of stairs but eventually they reached the top. The slow progress gave them plenty of time to admire the view. The stairs had taken them above the tops of the trees and the forest spread below them down to the ocean as a darker blue haze on the horizon.

The older couple were breathing deeply as they reached the top of the stairs. Leaning slightly against the railing they struggled to catch their breath. Waiting for them, Clint struck up a conversation with the lone woman.

“Enjoying the trip?” It was a little ham fisted, but it got the conversation started.

She jumped a little at being addressed, spinning to face Clint where he was watching the forest and the river below, the rest of their group and the other tour in view.

“Oh, um yes. So far. You?” Her voice was sweet, matching the sunny smile that hadn’t left her face all day even when her kids had been arguing at the very beginning.

“Mostly.” Clint laughed, waving lazy hand at his bruised face.

She cringed, not having really thought about what she was saying. It was one of those automatic ‘good manners’ responses that you never thought about until you put your foot in your mouth. “Sorry. I hope it gets better.”

Clint just laughed again and waved away the apology. Behind him, Phil grumbled and quickly knocked a knuckle against the wood. “Please don’t jinx him.” He groaned, the twinkle in his eye putting her at ease but it was enough for Clint to turn to him and stick out his tongue, he had heard the half serious worry behind the teasing.

She giggled at their antics, her worry forgotten.

“I’m Phil and the trouble maker is Clint.” Phil introduced them, because Clint never would, and held out a hand to shake. It was overly formal for a group of people on holiday with half their group in boardshorts and Hawaiian prints, but Phil would always revert back to formality when in new situations.

“Sasha.” She shook his hand, slightly bemused by this odd couple.

Carlos called them all slightly further down the boardwalk before they could say anything else. Gathering them all at a viewing platform.

“Across the river you can see the Written Rock. It was created by the Taino people between 600 and 1200 AD.” Carlos started a quick talk on the area, pointing out harder to see carvings, or other points of interesting. He talked for ten minutes and then let them wander on their own.

The boardwalk stretched a further hundred meters long the river, giving spectacular views down into the water below. The crystal clear water amplifying the fish and plants living below the surface. Sasha wandered with them. Chatting happily with them both, telling them about the school she worked at, her kids’ sports teams, her husband’s job at a mid-level bank Phil had heard of but Clint hadn’t. If they had been their target, it would have been the easiest information grab they had ever done.

Phil caught himself thinking that and had to stop. Turning his thoughts inwards he tried to remember the last time he had interacted with a civilian without assessing them for potential threat or intelligence worth. He couldn’t remember.

“Ola kalá?” Clint murmured. Asking if he was ok in Greek. If Phil had noticed something off with Sasha he didn’t want to give it away.

“Hm? Oh, yes. Sorry.” He elaborated at the still questioning eyebrow. “Just a stray thought, I’ll tell you later.” His own eyebrows asked him to drop it for the moment.

Clint acquiesced to the request.  

Reaching the end of the walkway, they turned around and wandered their way back. Sasha left them behind to re-join her family in the field below. A light hand on Clint’s arm stopped him from heading down to lunch. They were the only ones left above the waterfall, Sasha had long since descended, and Carlos was helping the older couple down the stairs. 

“Phil?” Clint asked when he did nothing else.

“The guards from last night, they’re nothing to worry about. The ship is smuggling prescription meds.” Phil easily filled him in on the details of his early morning session of B & E.

Listening to the quick sit-rep Clint was hoping for some hijinks, for something to go just a little wrong so that he could rib Phil for having gone in unprepared with no backup and no one knowing where he was. As Phil outlined getting in and out cleanly with his mission objective fulfilled, Clint’s hope went unfulfilled.

Phil’s expression screamed ‘see a mission can go exactly according to plan’. To shut Phil’s expression up, Clint hustled into the other man’s space and pressed his lips against Phil’s. He had intended to keep it PG-13, but the warmth and hidden strength of the other man’s body reeled him in. Phil opened to him, lips parting and tongue sweeping out to ask for entrance which Clint gladly gave. For long minutes they stood there, pressed against each other.

Finally breaking apart, they were breathing as hard as the old couple had been after climbing the stairs.

“Come on you, let’s go eat.” Phil threaded his fingers through Clint’s.

The rest of the tour they hardly left each other’s side, wandering through the coffee plantations at the last stop and murmuring to each other as they sampled the different variety of beans they grew. The sun was just starting to kiss the horizon when they all loaded back onto the van for the last time. It was a twenty minute drive back to the marina.

The dark clouds that had been gathering since they finished lunch started to open as the van pulled to a stop at the end of the pier. Fat drops splashed against the windshield. Each of the adults thanked Carlos as they filed out, a few notes exchanged hands as he shook hands with some of them. Clint and Phil waited until everyone else was off, in no particular hurry to get anywhere while the kids were loudly talking about the show they were going to that night, the honeymooners were struggling to keep their PDA PG-13, and the older woman was hiding yawns behind a wizened hand.

Phil slipped Carlos two twenties, one for each of them, as they warmly thanked him. It wouldn’t have been either of their first choice but they had thoroughly enjoyed the whole day. Both of them clutching several bags of organic, locally grown beans.

They didn’t dawdle getting back the ship and up the gangway, every step they took was accompanied by an ever increasing amount of rain. Ducking inside, the heavens opened, everything that hadn’t been soaked by the start of the rain was drenched in seconds. Water falling in a sheet rather than individual drops. 

Soaked to the skin, they were still laughing. Clint had reminded Phil of a time in Southern New Zealand where it had rained non-stop for the whole mission and Jasper’s hair had turned into an afro in the humidity, ultimately it was the mission that convinced him to shave it all off. Wrapped up in each other, the almost missed someone calling out to them.

“Um, it’s Cliff right?” Riesgraf stepped in front of them, having failed to get their attention any other way.

“Uh, Clint actually. Hi?” He separated slightly from Phil, abruptly thrusting his mind from the hand he had on Phil’s ass to the op. Sharp eyes took note of the expensive watch on one wrist and the AIDS fundraiser band on the other. 

“Hello. We sort of met yesterday? I’m Aldis.” The shorter man held out a hand.

Phil accepted it. “Phil. How are you doing after last night?”

Aldis looked slightly startled that his own welfare was being asked after, when it was Clint’s that he had wanted to ask about. “Oh, um. Fine. Thank you. And you?” He directed the end of it at Clint, obviously eyeing the bruises under Clint’s eyes from the broken nose.

Clint smiled warmly in the face of concern. “Nah, I’m fine.”

“If the broken nose is the worst of it on this trip, we’ll be lucky.” Phil added, deadpan.

“Hey!” Loudly protesting, Clint mock glared at his husband. “I’m not that bad.”

Phil’s smile was saccharine. “Yes you are.”

Aldis just watched the interplay, a wide grin on his face. He could see how much they loved each other as much as they might show it through teasing barbs. “Anyway.” He broke back into the conversation. “My wife Gina wanted me to invite you to dinner if I saw you. A thank you for saving my neck.”

“Sounds good. Did you have a night in mind?” Phil accepted. They had to sit with someone, so why not the person they were there to get information from.

“Why not tonight? We have a booking for Wonderland, let me see if I can get a bigger table.” He waved over at one of the pervasive service desks.

“Lead on.” They were still damp and would have liked the opportunity to get into dry clothes, but it was better than giving their target their cabin number. They stood behind Aldis as he flagged down and had a quick conversation with the man manning the desk. The service rep jumped on the computer and from his wide, fake, smile and quick head nod, Clint surmised they had a new dinner appointment.

“Excellent.” Aldis smiled brightly at the service rep and then re-joined them. “Table for four at 7pm.” His smile didn’t waiver, but it wasn’t frozen. It wasn’t fake. He was genuinely looking forward to dinner with two strangers.

“We’ll see you then.” Phil shook his hand again as they parted ways. Clint stayed silent, just nodding a friendly goodbye giving himself the chance to continue observing the accountant. At no point in their interaction had Clint’s heckles raised, nothing setting off an alarm in his head that screamed wrong or threat. It was a friendly, warm conversation with a man that didn’t appear to have a malignant bone in his body. Why was a man like that working for Hydra? Unless he was an actor on par with the Black Widow who was the only other person to have never triggered an alarm in Clint’s head. Even Phil had when they first met.

The seven o’clock timing meant they had just over an hour to get ready. Neither being particularly fussy they ambled back to their room. Half dried by the warm air inside the boat by the time they arrived at their room, Phil struggled a bit with stripping out of his clammy jeans. Clint had a much easier time stepping out of his baggy shorts and then pulling off his shirt with noticeably more flexing than needed.

 Oh they were going to be late.

= + =

Even rushing their showers after being distracted, they were still ten minutes late in meeting Aldis and Gina at the door into the predominantly black and white restaurant with its floor to ceiling windows giving a spectacular view into the open air interior of the ship’s top levels. The quartet walked into the foyer of the large room together. Gina gasping over the décor and Clint agreeing, pointing out small details she had missed. Phil and Aldis exchanged amused glances but left them to it.

They were quickly lead across the room to a table for four overlooking the boardwalk, the fairy lights in the trees below sparkling and glinting, creating a sea of light. Every table and chairs set was different, but the black and white with pops of primary colour tied it all together. Their table was a square of white marble with thin veins of pale pink running through it. Soft white suede covered all of the chair and the candles and plates picked the pink from the table. Three other servers materialised from behind planters and screens, silently pulling out the seats for them. The two couples sat kitty corner to their counterparts and the servers also dissolved into the scenery again.

A man in full tails with the chain of a pocket watch hooked from his waistcoat to his pocket approached the table. Long arms, cradled a stack of picture frames.

“An experience to remember is about to occur, to begin to journey answer me. Without me and within me is death assured, but within you I am life most pure.” As he talked, he distributed the picture frames. One finished he turned smartly on his heel and glided away again.

The frames were ornate, black with gold leafing. Oddly, there wasn’t anything inside the frames, just rougher than normal paper. Clint mumbled the riddle to himself, thinking out loud. “Without me, within me is death assured…water. Dehydration or drowning. The answer is water.” He announced to the table.

Amongst the odd assortment of cutlery and tools was a paintbrush. Dipping it into his water glass he swiped it across the paper. With a few graceful strokes, words began to appear. The others followed suit. Gold fleck black ink in swirling calligraphy picked out across the thick paper. Three options for three courses swept down the page, instead of the normal appetiser, main, desert headings, earth, fire and air were the headings.

Wide smiles were made brighter by light flashing off the metal surfaces that surrounded them. The description of the dishes were as whimsical as the decor. 

The waiter reappeared, Clint thought he needed a puff of smoke to really sell it but allowed that the bright lighting would have negated the effect.

The rest of the evening washed past with continuous interesting conversation and without major incident. Clint found a common interest in maths with Aldis, while Phil and Gina happily passed the meals discussing the newest exhibition at the MET that they both wanted to see but hadn’t had a chance yet.

Two hours later, the two couples parted ways outside the restaurant, tentative plans for coffee during the sea days on the way back suggested. 

“That was oddly...  _ nice. _ ” Clint said wonderingly as they wandered through the fairy-lit trees of the indoor boardwalk. “Have we ever had a Hydra mark be that nice?”

Phil hummed in thought, an external indicator that he wouldn’t have shown in front of anyone else. “No, I don’t think so. Those Bratva from Minsk were quite pleasant but no Hydra members.” He eventually agreed.

“Pleasant? They weren’t pleasant.” Clint groused. “Petrov tried to marry you off to his daughter!” He took exception to anyone trying to marry his husband, to themselves or someone else. It happened disturbingly often.

“But at least she was closer to my type than his other daughter.” Phil smirked, poorly alluding to the poor woman’s rather masculine features. Phil was much further  up the Kinsey scale than Clint.

Deep chuckles burst from Phil at the put out look on Clint’s face. The blonde looked halfway between pouting and murderous. Phil’s laugh pushed him over into an over done pout. Using the arm around Clint’s waist he drew him in closer, hustling the other man back to their cabin. The pouting bottom lip was just asking to be bitten and he didn’t particularly want to be done for public indecency.

= + =

The door wasn’t fully closed when Phil pushed Clint roughly against the it, too impatient to wait. Their combined body weight slamming the heavy wood closed, with a soft ‘oof’ from Clint.

He was laughing even as Phil claimed his mouth, things had been so up in the air with Phil and the secrecry of his latest project that the fun had gone out of their sex life a while ago. It was nice to have it back. The kiss was messy, and more teeth were involved then either of them liked, but it was shot through with laughter and searching hands.

Skin met skin. Phil’s warm hands sneaking under Clint’s button up shirt. The fabric was stretched tight across the archer’s impressive chest and shoulders, and the added tension of Phil’s hands had buttons popping and skittering across the wooden floor.

“Hey!” Clint protested with a laugh, pulling away from the kiss to do it. He didn’t care about the shirt, but knew Phil would. 

Hands wrapped in the gaping front of his shirt, Phil dragged Clint towards the bedroom, he didn’t care about the shirt, he cared about getting his hands on more of his husband’s golden skin. Walking backwards, his mouth was demanding, hungry to relearn Clint’s taste.

Clint had to throw out an arm to steady them as they stumbled into the bedroom. Each of them caught up in the kiss and trying to press as much of their bodies together as possible while still walking. Phil backed himself into the mattress and toppled down onto it, dragging Clint down on top of himself.

Urging the ruined shirt down over Clint’s shoulders, it got stuck at Clint’s elbows, his forearms and hands too busy trying to undo the button on the unfamiliar pants. He knew all of Phil’s pants at home, the fabric soft and yielding. These weren’t as sex friendly. Still hard with new fabric stiffness and a slightly different design than the older man normally favoured, it was taking him an unacceptable amount of time to get the fucking button through the fucking hole!

They struggled against each other for a second, Phil trying to get Clint’s shirt off and Clint trying to get Phil’s pants undone. Seams protesting the strain. Phil gave up first, he let go of the shirt and allowed Clint to have his way.

With a smug grin, Clint got the pants unbuttoned and the zip down, his hand wrapping around Phil’s hard length before he realised what was happening.

Phil lost his breath at the contact. Mind whiting out as Clint moved his hand, rough calluses catching deliciously against soft skin. It was Phil’s turn to pout, he didn’t have the brain capacity to choose between keeping Clint’s hand on his dick and getting the offending shirt off. Normally so good at planning and contingencies, when it came to Clint, his higher brain functions shorted out. They had since the first time they had met. He mostly had it under control, through long practice, but he was overwhelmed by the warmth and weight of the body pressing down on his. Surrounded by the sweet scent of sun and honest sweat he surrendered. 

Clint solved the dilemma for him, shimmying his free arm out of the sleeve, leaving it hanging from one arm. Swapping hands he finished removing the shirt without letting up on the slow, steady pump he had started.

“Oh, god.” Phil gasped, writhing under Clint’s larger bulk. Leaning up slightly he licked a stripe across one of the newly exposed nipples and then blew softly.

The move had Clint gasping and his hips grinding down, catching Phil and his own hand between their bodies.

“Too many. God yes. Clothes.” Phil moaned, he matched the pressure. He stripped off his own shirt, fingers fumbling on the buttons as Clint lent down and bit his collarbone and then his pec as each new sliver of skin was revealed. Eventually he got it undone, and wriggled out of it.

Toeing off his shoes, he snuck a hand down between them, searching for the fly of Clint’s pants, desperate to remove the last bits of material separating them. Clint pulled back slightly, lifting his hips from where they had been grinding own. No longer pressed together, he released Phil and finished removing the other man’s pants, working them down muscled legs. Stopping to bite and nibble on his way down.

Pulling Phil’s socks off along with his pants, Clint finally divested him of the last of his clothing. Standing, he took a small step back, just to admire the body splayed out before him. It also allowed Phil to look his fill. Lack of a shirt allowed silver moonlight to bounce of golden skin and muscles that a Renaisance sculpture could only wish to replicate, pants open and hanging off slim hips, his cock jutting out of the wide vee, it was a sight he would never get tired of looking at, but if Clint didn’t get a fucking move on, he was going to have to do something drastic.

Luckily, Clint started moving again. Shucking his own pants, shoes and socks, his skin luminous in the moonlight that was streaming in the open window. The sea breeze played across increasingly sweat coated skin. Clint knelt on the mattress between Phil’s legs and slowly spread them, opening Phil to him. Leaning down, he kissed Phil, tongue licking into the older man’s mouth, demanding entrance. Bodies lined up perfectly, they moved against each other, both seeking the friction they needed but not quite finding it. 

All of his weight on one elbow, Clint reached for the bedside table with the other arm. Perfect aim coming into play as his hand closed over the drawer handle and wrenched it open on the first try. Hand easily finding the bottle of lube within, he returned his attention to the man beneath him, pressing their hips even closer together, he slowly moved down Phil’s body, pausing to lick across one nipple and then bite the other, tongue flicking quickly in and out of his belly button. Chin and then nose nudging against Phil’s twitching cock he licked a broad stripe from root to tip before taking the whole length in one slow swallow.

Phil nearly came off the bed at the sudden sensation. Muscles contracting in surprise and then loosening as the pleasure of heat and warmth and suction rolled over him in waves so close together they were almost one never ending floors.

Mouth occupied, Clint worked one lubricated finger inside the other man, pressing and twisting in counterpoint to the suck and swallow of his mouth. Working him open intoxicatingly slowly. Taking his time, he slid in a second finger spreading them slightly then pushing them further in, curling inside until they found the perfect spot to send Phil thrashing. 

Hands grabbed at his shoulders and hair desperately looking for something to hold onto but lost in the sensations, trying to pull him off and hold him where he was at the same time.

“More. Please. God. Clint. Fuck.” Phil panted above him. Words tumbling out unheeded. Phil was more loquacious in bed than Clint, the only place in his life where he didn’t have to guard his words.

Clint grinned around the cock still in his mouth. Slurping his way off, he moved quick as lightning, pulling his fingers out and slamming his way home. Phil howled. He was loose enough from Clint’s loving ministrations that it was pure pleasure.

Clint sent a punishing pace, pulling out and pushing in slowly but hard, each time he bottomed out Phil was pushed an inch up the bed. Flinging his arms above his head, he braced against the headboard, stabilising himself for Clint to continue moving.

“Yes!” Phil grunted when the blunt head of Clint’s thick cock hit against that little bundle of nerves. Reflexively, Phil rippled around Clint.  Muscles clenching.

Having found his target, it was easy for Clint to find it again, and again, tipping Phil over into sparking ecstasy. Warmth bursting between their bodies, Clint continued to move through the clenching of Phil’s muscles. The rolling clench and release around Clint’s hard cock pulled him over the edge. Both of their breaths stuttering as they were left panting from the intense release.

Aftershocks still zipping down his spine, Clint collapsed against Phil, his considerable bulk a warm, safe weight that Phil gathered closer with shaking arms.

Even with the cool breeze, it was too warm to lay pressed together for long. Clint rolled off Phil, and sauntered to the bathroom. Loose limbed and relaxed. Once he was cleaned up, Phil slipped past him to see to his own ablutions. 

Clint pulled on a pair of sleep pants but stayed shirtless, and crawled back into bed to wait for Phil’s return.

They were laying in a tangle of limbs, the only light from the stars and moon out the open window when Clint spoke, putting words to a question that had been bugging him since they boarded.

“How are we going to explain the booking being changed?”

Phil had always been the one who wanted to hide their relationship, on Clint’s behalf. Clint’s recruitment had been so extraordinary, even for SHIELD, that he didn’t want people to say that Clint had gotten any  _ more  _ special treatment. This was a pretty big risk for exposure.

“We won’t. There was a computer glitch.” Phil’s voice was heavy with sleep, Clint could tell he had caught him right on the edge of falling. “It hid the original booking but we had the print-out, so the company sorted it and upgraded us for the inconvenience. If they ask.”

Of the two of them, Phil was always sluggish and prone to napping after a good orgasm while it left Clint energised and his mind running.

“Oh, okay.” Clint said the words carefully, softly letting the sounds into the otherwise quiet room. He rolled away slightly. He had been hoping it meant that Phil was ready to stop hiding. Clint was well and truly established in the agency and telling people wasn’t going to make anyone outside of the most dickish circles question the archer’s worth. And those guys questioned him even without that extra ammunition.

Phil closed the distance between them, slotting himself firmly against Clint’s back, his own bare chest warm against him. “Good night love.” He whispered.

Clint knew the moment Phil fell into a deep sleep, his breath evened out and the arm around Clint’s waist went slack. Moving at a snail’s pace, he detangled their limbs and climbed from the bed. With his preternatural eyesight it was a cinch for him to find and dress in his gym clothes and ease out of the bedroom. A quick stop on the couch to tie his shoes and collect the room pass, and Clint was out the door.

The wood panelled corridor outside their door was dim. The main boulevard of their level was deserted, even the most enthusiastic partiers had turned in for the night, tired from an early start and an exciting day. Clint found the dull humming of the colossal engines comforting, without the noise and weariness that came from being surrounded by strangers.

Having scoped out the colossal ship on their first day, Clint knew the gym was on the same level as their cabin and the running track was one level above. A quick duck into the dark gym was all it took to drop off his towel and water bottle in a cubby and he was bounding up the stairs to the track. Cardio was his least favourite thing ever which is why he started with it, he couldn’t imagine having to do it last when his muscles had that good exhausted shake going on. 

The red track was barely lit by the portholes every few feet that were letting in the quickly disappearing moon light. The thump of his feet against the rubber and his breath in his ears was all he could hear. He lost himself in the movement. An internal counter ticked past an unconsciously chosen number and his feet slowed. He walked the final hundred feet back to the start line, allowing his heart rate to settle.

He took the stairs at a walk this time, the restless energy beginning to ebb. Back in the gym he drained his water bottle before settling in at one of the weights stations that offered a magnificent view across an almost flat ocean, and the star spattered sky that wasn’t drowned out by city lights.


	17. Day 5: History Repeats Itself, because it can’t be bothered to come up with new plot points

Clint sat in the empty gym for hours. Watching the moon and starlight glint of barely there waves. The wake of the colossal ship swirling the waters, showing where they had passed. He wasn’t sure why after all of these years he was suddenly tired of the secrecy. He had joined Phil at SHIELD more than six years ago, and in all of that time he had accepted, even understood, the need to keep their relationship secret. Through flirty Juniors and long stretches of time apart on different missions, through injury and ransom demands, he hadn’t questioned the need to have a hard separation between their private and professional lives.

Maybe the toll that the recently completed research project had put on their relationship was finally too much. Maybe still being dismissed by Phil’s work friends, even after years of earning his place with the agency. He wanted Jasper and Sharon and Maria to know that Phil had someone to come home to. He wanted them to stop trying to set him up with friends because they thought he was going to die alone. It could be a million things or just one. All he knew was that he was tired of the secrecy.

The sky was awash with pinks and purples, dawn breaking quickly and spectacularly over the watery horizon when he finally stood to return to their room. Sitting here alone in the dark wasn’t going to fix anything and neither was bringing it up when he knew Phil was in no state to actually discuss his concerns. He hadn’t been able to help himself, a tiny voice in the back of his head that he would probably never get rid of whispered that if Phil couldn’t think straight, he couldn’t get angry and leave. It was a coward’s move but he had done it anyway. 

The scuff of a shoe against the wood was his signal to get moving. The ship was beginning to wake up around him, or at least the guests were, the staff would have been up for hours. Nodding in passing to the newly arrived gym junkie, who else would there at the arse crack of dawn while on holiday? There were one or two other people out as he ambled back to the cabin. 

The quiet beep of the lock accepting his key card was the only sound he made as he re-entered the small set of rooms. Phil was spread across the bed, lying on his stomach with his face turned towards the balcony doors. One hand was hidden under Clint’s pillow, he knew his husband’s long fingers were probably wrapped around the knife hidden there. His body looking for protection as he slept alone, no one to watch his back. Clint left him there to sleep. Backing out of the bedroom and going to shower the dried sweat off. 

Phil hadn’t moved when he came back, towel wrapped around his waist, in search of clothes. It was still early enough that Clint decided to leave Phil to sleep. They had already met the mission requirements after all, and the older man obviously needed the sleep or he would have woken when Clint first came back into the room, or at least when the shower turned on. Scribbling a quick note he left it on the counter.

In the short time he had been in the cabin, the ship had come to life. Early birds ambled through the corridors, most of them heading for the main dining room at the back of the ship, or one of the coffee shops spread across the main floors. Clint followed an older couple, probably old enough to be his parents if they hadn’t died so early, out of the hallways his cabin opened onto and into the Starbucks he had Phil had visited their first day on the ship.

With overly sugary, frappinated monstrosity of a coffee in hand, Clint ducked into an elevator going up. 

= + =

An hour later Phil found him on the top floor, sprawled along a sun lounger, sunglasses hiding his eyes. Phil knew that behind them, the sniper was watching the world. Others would think he was asleep, unmoving and chest pressing up and down slow and even. But he would never sleep in such as exposed location. Anyone could get to him. Clint had to have a locked door between himself and the world, and at least three weapons of different types within easy reach before he would allow himself to sleep. It was one of their ongoing arguments when on assignment because it wasn’t always possible and he needed to sleep more than once every three or four days, especially when a slip in his focus could get him and a lot of other people killed.

He had succumbed to the bag of Hawaiian print that Clint had packed for him, wearing the least offensive of the shirts with a pair of light linen pants he had picked up on-board. The shit eating grin on Clint’s face was 100% in response to the sartorial choice. 

“Did you get any sleep at all?” Phil asked, sitting down on the only bit of space on the sun lounger he could find, right by Clint’s hips. It only part of his body he could extend to use all of the available space.

“Not really.” Clint lost his grin, averting his still hidden eyes. He had rested, sort of, but hadn’t gotten any actual sleep.

“Clint?”

“It’s nothing Phil. Come on, breakfast.” Clint pushed his sunglasses up and pasted an almost real smile on his face. He didn’t give Phil a chance to argue, twining their fingers together and pulling them both upright. Down one floor, they entered the Marketplace, a sprawling buffet that was sun dappled under an opened retractable roof.

On a sea-day it was early enough that it would have been virtually deserted. With shore excursions starting early, they had docked sometime around midnight, the large area was buzzing. The laughter and shouts of children echoed over the quieter murmur of the adults trying to drown themselves in coffee.

“Find us a table?” Phil pointed towards one side of the room, a small collection of tables were partially obscured by a clump of trees that would separate them a little from the crowds.

“Waffles and bacon?” Clint asked before agreeing to move away.

Whatever was eating at Clint was more serious than Phil had realised, he only ate waffles and bacon when he needed the comfort of one of the only good memories from his childhood. He searched the crystalline blue eyes that were so familiar to him, but they were guarded in a way he didn’t like. He had thought all of the tension that had been simmering between them lately had been because of Tahiti, but apparently it wasn’t just him that was getting stuck in his own head.

Loaded down with waffles and bacon for Clint, maple muesli for himself and enough coffee to outfit a small SHIELD research station, he found Clint at a table tucked in behind the trees. It hid them from most of the surrounding people, but still gave them good sightlines.

“Was there anything in particular you wanted to do today?” Phil had a list memorised of the activities on offer, while waiting for Clint’s waffles, he had mentally pared it down to a few he thought would appeal most strongly to Clint. 

“There’s a water park that looks interesting.” Clint offered.

It wasn’t a suggestion Phil was expecting, although he should have been, Clint had never shown any interest in amusement parks. “Sounds good.” He wasn’t about to say no after asking what he wanted to do, and a water park could be interesting, maybe.

They lingered over breakfast, pointing out this interesting vacation outfit or parroting that conversation that caught their attention. As they enjoyed their second cup of coffee, or Clint’s third, the early risers who wanted to make the most of a shore day dispersed to their cabins and the crowd of hungover holiday makers replaced them. The sound of the room changed from screams of joy, to groans of pain.

Both already ready for the day, they went straight from the marketplace, to the disembarkment area low on the starboard side. A chipper crew member was waiting at the bottom of the plank to dispense instructions and directions to anyone leaving the ship, Phil figured she was also counting everyone off and someone would count them back on to make sure they didn’t leave anyone behind.

Clint broke away to quickly chat to her, returned and threaded his fingers back through Phil’s.

“There are shuttles running out to Coral World and back, leaving here on the hour and there on the half hour.” Clint pointed at yet another white mini bus that was idling at the end of the dock. 

Aside from the driver, there wasn’t anyone around. But it wasn’t scheduled to leave for another ten minutes, they had arrived just in time, and other people could still turn up. Clint lead him inside, getting out of the glare from the sun and taking a seat right at the back.

“What’up losers?” A voice called from the steps of the little bus.

Phil jerked around from where he had been studying Clint, trying to divine what was going on in the other man’s mind. Long black hair in a high ponytail swung with the girl’s movement as she skipped up the stairs and onto the vehicle.

“Good Morning Kate.” He returned what he hoped had been meant as a greeting.

Clint the mature, responsible, highly trained Agent of SHIELD that he was stuck out his tongue in greeting. “You coming to Coral World?” He asked once he put his tongue back in his mouth where it was supposed to be.

She shrugged one purple hoodie covered shoulder, “Might be fun. Or better than watching Dad and Heather make eyes at each other.” She gagged. “Whatever.” She waved away the discomfort she felt at her current parental make-up. “Your callouses.” She returned to the topic they had never gotten to the point of during trivia. “You shoot.” She pulled another face, the words obviously not working any better for her that day than the last time they had seen her. “A bow. You do archery.” She finally got to the point she was trying to ask about.

“Uh, yeah.” Clint stumbled over his agreement. “How did you..You shoot too.” He realised even as he got halfway through asking. The shock wore off a little and his face brightened with the thought of talking to someone else about his second true love. Phil being his first, obviously, why would you even need to ask?

“Yup. 40 pound Recurve.” She said smugly. Her smile, very the cat that ate the canary. Realistically she knew that he would be able to pull more, but no one had believed she would be able to handle a recurve, let alone such a high draw weight.

He whistled appreciatively. That was impressive for most adults, let alone a teenager.

= + =

Phil watched the interaction with interest. The first time they had interacted with Kate, it had seemed as if the two got along. Now, with the twenty minute drive to the water park spent expounding on the awesomeness of archery, it was obvious they were kindred spirits. Clint had always gotten on with kids. Taking time to pass out a few pieces of candy or a sticker when they were out in the middle of nowhere on a mission. He had seen the other man sit down and play endless rounds of snap and go-fish, long after Phil would have lost all sense from boredom, with their nieces and nephews.

It made him wonder if he regretted not having children of their own. It wasn’t something they had ever really discussed. Phil had taken it for granted that their careers, and the good they were doing, meant more to both of them than having a family. Now with the thought in his head, he considered that he was wrong. Was that the problem that had kept Clint from sleeping last night? Watching the amount of families, and kids running around the ship had reminded him of something he wanted? Something he felt was missing from his life with Phil?

Phil had never wanted children. He liked them well enough, but didn’t understand them. His patience was all wrapped up in his professionalism, which came off cold and uncaring to anyone without a service background. Lost in thought, he missed the van pulling to a stop beside a stone wall, people in shorts and tank tops strolling past. A long pier with a flying saucer looking building at the other end visible further down the beach.

“Phil?” A hand landed on his shoulder, the wide warmth and rough callouses were as familiar to him as his own.

“Hmm?” It shook him from his thoughts. “Sorry, what?”

“We’re here.” Clint needlessly pointed out the window.

Kate’s long black hair was swinging wildly behind her as she skipped down the wood, she was far enough away that they must have been there a while.

“Right.” Phil slid off the vinyl seat, sticky with heat and humidity. The whole vista wasn’t what he was expecting. A severe lack of tall plastic water slides and screaming children. “I thought we were going to an amusement park?”

Once out of the van, Clint tangled their fingers together, giving him a strange look at the same time. “No. Don’t even know if there is one on the island. Coral World is a mix of aquarium and ocean sanctuary. Still going to get wet though.” The last was said with an easy leer, Clint pressed himself along Phil’s side, shoulder to hip.

The position made it awkward to walk, both of them tripping slightly before Clint pulled away to walk normally again. It was lucky for them both that their driver had parked slightly further from the entrance or they would have fallen up the stairs which would have hurt and been extremely embarrassing for them both. Imagine trying to explain the matching broken noses back at base.

Clint handed over a bright green wrist ban as they approached the staff member in soft, sky blue polo and khaki cargo shorts.

“Woman at the dock.” Clint answered the unasked question of where the bands had come from. “When I asked about the transport.”

“Welcome to Coral World! I see you have our express pass. Any experience you wish to partake in is open to you just talk to one of your staff.” He smiled brightly, and Clint actually believed it. It reached his eyes.

“Thank you.” Phil responded.

With the bands bright against their skin, they were able to bypass the line of tourists waiting to buy entry. As they passed back out into the sunshine, Clint snagged a map and small brochure outlining the experiences that had been mentioned.

“Hey! So wanna go on the SNUBA tour with me? It’s a group of four and I don’t wanna get stuck with some weirdos.” Kate appeared beside them.

“Jesus woman. Where did you come from?” Clint glared at her, having jumped a foot at the sudden reappearance. “Shut up.” He grumbled at the smirk lurking in Phil’s crow’s feet.

So much for super spy, Phil’s hands took over laughing at him.

“Coffee.” She waved a frozen drink at them, condensation dripping slowly down the side.

Phil’s ‘that’s not coffee’ was drowned out by Clint asking what the hell SNUBA was, and agreeing that yes it sounded fucking awesome they would absolutely do that with her. Phil couldn’t really complain about his grumbling being ignored in the face of Clint’s excitement.

“SNUBA Phil. It even has a cool name.” Clint veered off to the left quickly, the small building holding the shop.

Another person in blue and khaki was standing, bored behind the counter. 

“Welcome to the Water Sport Shop, how can I help?” She barely glanced up from the magazine she was flipping through.

“We wanted to book a group of three for SNUBA.” Clint put extra emphasis on the last work, enjoying the way it rolled out of his mouth.

She flicked a glance at their green bands. “No problem.” Her smile was as false as the man’s had been true. “There is a slot free at 11.30. Just fill out the medical waiver and head down to the Undersea Observatory.” She held out a couple sheafs of paper stapled together.

Phil took them from her with a perfunctory thanks, he would never be as rude as not to thank someone, unless he was undercover, but as her attention was already fully off them, there wasn’t much reason to put much effort into it. He handed one to Clint and Kate before going through his own. Skimming the document he saw a problem even as the others were filling in their names, not having read it first.

“Clint?”

“Hm?”

“Clint.” He pulled the papers from under Clint’s pen and flipped the page. “You’re not going to be able to go.” He pointed at the two sticking points.

Clint read the rest of the document. There were two medical points that said he wouldn’t be able to go, not without a doctor’s permission which wasn’t going to happen.

“What’s going on?” Kate tried to read over Clint’s shoulder but was too short. Dropping out of sight with a thud, she moved to beside him instead.

“Clint can’t SNUBA. His nose and ears.” Phil explained.

The teenager pouted up at him, obviously used to getting her way. “It’s not that bad right? He will be fine. They just have to cover themselves.”

Apparently his husband’s new friend, viewed personal safety as lacksy-daisily as him.

“It’ll be fine Phil.” Clint’s pout was much more attractive, but no more convincing.

Phil frowned at him, unhappy to be made the bad guy. “No.” It didn’t move him though. “I’m not going to let you risk your health. What is something happens?” The undercurrent that Clint caught but Kate didn’t was, ‘what would happen to the mission if Clint was hurt?’ Especially with communication back to base almost non-existent. There would be no extraction if they were blown, and if Clint was hurt Phil would be smugly wrapped in his ‘I told you so’ for at least the next six months.

Clint let the pout drop, for a second he had forgotten they were there for work. Not on holiday where they had the option of screwing around and taking unnecessary risk. He knew that even if they were, Phil wouldn’t let him sign the waiver but having the weight of the mission behind his argument was pretty compelling.

Taking Phil’s papers, he handed both packets back to the woman behind the counter. “Sorry Kate. You should still do it. Tell us all about it later?”

Looking between them, it was clear she was on her own. “’Kay.” With a wave she left them in the shadowed interior, racing off to try and join the next group.

Phil snagged a leaflet of all the activities the park offered, holding it out to Clint. “Is there anything else you want to try?” It was a peace offering, an apology that they couldn’t do his first choice.

= + =

Punch drunk on sunlight, cute animals, and each other, they were grinning stupidly as they shuffled out the entrance and collapsed on the steps to wait for the van. Clint had opted for the Sea Lion Swim and then an afternoon rambling through the enclosures. It had been another relaxing day on a mission that had been going suspiciously well. None of their missions went this smoothly.

Subtly knocking his knuckles against the wooden sign behind them, he prayed he hadn’t jinxed them. All three members of Delta were superstitious in their own ways. Clint wrapped up in the Karma that dogged the footsteps of the circus folk he had grown up with. Natasha with a set of rituals and mannerisms that meant nothing to anyone but her. And Phil himself, the military rule of Murphy’s Law had settled deep under his skin the almost a decade he had spent in the Army and that had only dug itself deeper when he moved to SHIELD.

He hadn’t vocalised the ‘it’s going smoothly’ thought, so things would be ok. Fuck. If he didn’t find something else to think about, he was going to vocalise what was going through his mind and then things would go FUBAR, just watch and see.

“The Circus show tonight.” He sounded the words out slowly. Making sure they were a sentiment he actually wanted to express. It was a little out of left field, but acceptable.

“Yup.” Clint pop’ed the sound on salt cracked lips. He was stretched across the stairs, enjoying the warmth, looking more like a cat lounging in a patch of winter sun than anything else.

“It should be interesting.” Their interpretations of interesting when it came to Circus shows was very different. Phil enjoyed the performance, Clint enjoyed critiquing it.

Before Clint could respond, not that there was much to say, the shuttle with the jumping dolphin logo of their cruise line pulled up. The same driver as that morning sitting behind the wheel. Groaning slightly, they levered themselves off the hard stone steps and shuffled up the steps. In the short time they had been sitting, their joints had stiffened, a hard life and age making getting off the ground that little more difficult.

“Good Evening Gentlemen.” The driver greeted them.

Returning the sentiment, they settled in the back of the bus to wait. Almost as soon as they were seated, Clint’s whole body slanted into Phil’s, his head hit his shoulder and he was out. The skipped night of sleep, the long day, and the sun catching up on him. 

Phil let him sleep.

In the dim light, with the thrum of the engine providing ignorable white noise, he let his mind wander. Thoughts obsessively picking through the day. Looking for some indication as to what had been worrying Clint that morning. The younger man had been a bit more free with the touches than normal, but they had to sell their cover and their usual lack of PDA looked odd to anyone who didn’t know them.

Nothing else had been out of the ordinary.

As far as he could tell everything was fine. But it also wasn’t. Obviously. Or he wouldn’t have woken in an empty bed this morning.

The bus pulled to a stop at the bottom of the gangway with a jolt hard enough to wake Clint. Blue eyes blinked owlishly up at Phil from his shoulder.

“Come on. We have some time before dinner. Let’s try and get a nap in.” It would be tight to get to the show on time, unless the nap was only 30 minutes, but they could do it. Phil jimmied him off the bus and up the gangway. Quietly they stood shoulder to shoulder in the elevator. Neither of them feeling the need to break the silence. In the room, Clint broke off to the bathroom, the patter of water on plastic growing as he turned on the shower and fiddled with the controls. Steam billowed through the door he had left open. At home, Phil probably would have joined him. Both to be close and to wash the salt off his own skin, there wasn’t room in the little bathroom here unfortunately.

Instead, he set the kettle to boil, puttering around the kitchen dropping tea bags into a couple of mugs and gathering a plate of cookies. He set them up on the couch, if they went to bed, they would sleep all evening and then but up all night which defeated the whole purpose.

They moved passed each other in a long perfected dance of domesticity. Clint out of the shower with only a towel wrapped around his waist went in one direction, Phil striping his sweat and salt stained clothes going in the other. Standing under the inadequate water pressure, he quickly soaped himself up and then washed down. At home he would have lingered, their water pressure pounding on his skin an indulgence they didn’t often get when on mission. WIth only a weak dribble and the heat already running out, he was out in a time that would make any drill sergeant happy.

Emerging in a small puff of steam from the little bathroom into the main section of the cabin, he saw Clint already asleep on the couch, two cookies and half his mug of tea gone. Clad only in loose, well worn cotton pants, the golden skin of his well definite chest was on display. Neither of them were particularly fond of going shirtless in public, too many scars, and for Clint the unsubtle appreciative glances of anyone who swung that way. In private it was a different matter. If Clint didn’t have to have a shirt and shoes on he didn’t, often shuffling around their apartment or myriad safe houses in a collection of hole riddled pants. Phil was a little more reserved, going for something comfortable but still opting for a shirt. He stood admiring the smooth slope of silky skin over rock hard muscle for long enough that he had air dried when he finally ducked into the bedroom to find something to change into. A pair of jeans stolen from Clint’s bag paired nicely with a dove grey polo from Clint’s apology shop.

Hair settled back into place, and socks but no shoes on, he carefully sat on the couch at Clint’s hip. He stroked a hand down the length of the other man’s spine. In another setting or with more time, it would have been an invitation and probably continued past the stretched out elastic waistband, for now it settled in the dip before his husband’s magnificent ass. A slight pressure to wake CLint up while also assure him of the safety of their location. It was always a risky business waking either of them from a nap. The wrong touch during a bad dream would have them swinging, many a black eye and one memorable broken nose early in their relationship had illustrated that adequately.

The hand on Clint’s lower back, or a hand cradling Phil’s cheek worked, but not the other way around. 

A grumble and a mutter signalled Clint’s return to consciousness. Snuffling he pressed his face further into the pillow.  “No.” The word was almost lost in the plush fabric.

“Yes.” NOw that he was awake, it was safe for Phil to lean down and press a line of kisses nd short nips from one shoulder, across to the other. NIbbling at an ear as he passed it.

Clint turned his head just enough to look at him wearily with one sleep dulled eye. “Bed?” Life was quickly returning to him as he wriggled each limb awake.

“No.” Phil pressed another kiss into Clint’s skin, ito his neck this time. “You have to get up if we are going to eat before the show.”

A querying mirp was the only answer he got, as Clint hid his face back into the pillow again.

“The circus show? And even if you don’t want to you, you do need to get up or you won’t sleep tonight.” Phil gave him one last, gentle, poke before getting up himself. They weren’t in any huge rush to get out of the cabin, but Clint would take a while to shuffle through getting ready so better safe than sorry.

A hard thump behind him let him know Clint was up, for a value of up. He knew if he turned around it was even odds that he was now face up on the floor. A warm hand wrapped around his waist, coming to rest flat on his stomach. It pulled him backwards half a step, until his clothed back was plastered to the sleep warm heat of Clint’s naked chest. Warm, slightly chapped lips unerringly found their target, the sensitive spot where his shoulder met his neck. HIs tongue flicked out, licking the spot just enough to make him shiver with anticipation. At the same time, he pressed his crotch into Phil’s ass, the hard length of him slotting into place.

Automatically, Phil pressed back, grinding their hips together with a groan.

Suddenly, Clint pulled away with a single final barely there kiss to just below his ear. Turning, Phil caught a glimpse of the smug grin on Clint’s face as he disappeared into the other room to get changed.

“Not fair.” Phil grumbled at his back. Not to be heard, just to say it.

“Yup.” Clint popped the end of the word as he stepped back into the room. A button down shirt hanging open on his shoulders as he shifted to do up his fly without catching anything sensitive, the pants were a little tighter than they normally were.

Phil settled his face into his blandest Agent Coulson expression and watched him struggle, hands folded strategically to hide his own clothing issue.

They both knew how this game went. It had played a significant factor in them getting their heads out of their asses and realising they weren’t just convenient fuck buddies. 

“Aw, jeans. No.” Clint whined when he caught himself in a button.

Phil tsk’ed. The younger man pouted as he finally got the offending bit of metal through the fabric.

“You brought it on yourself.” Phil said mercilessly.

“Mean.” He grumbled at his chest as his dexterous fingers flicked the buttons of his shirt closed.

“Yes dear.” He dropped the most condescending kiss in history on Clint’s cheek. Side by side on the couch they pulled on shoes, tying them differently. Clint had always been a rabbit ears guy, where as Phil was an over under sort of man.

Bumping elbows, and shoulders and hips, most of which were accidents, they got up and out into the body of the ship. “Any preference?” Phil didn’t particularly want to go to the main dining room. 

“Sea food?”

There was something a little bit wrong about craving fish when they had spent all day learning about overfishing and ocean conservation, but the idea of fresh sea food was too tempting to say no to. The directory around the corner from their room, conveniently right next to the elevator, light up with four options offering seafood. A short back and forth had them heading down several floors to the Izumi Hibachi and Sushi Bar. It put them only one level about their seats for the show and walking in it was obvious that it skewed heavily towards the adult population of the ship. A single little girl at a table at the back was quietly colouring while her parents ate dinner.

It was easily the quietest public space they had come across on the giant ship. Quiet conversation barely audible over soft background music. Phil thought it might be Shamisen, but he wasn’t sure. A small woman in a cotton kimono greeted them at the door with a deep bow.

“Konbanwa, watashi ni shitagatte kudasai.” She had to shuffle delicately in the tightly bound dress.

Both of them knew enough Japanese to understand what she was saying, but the physical cues were enough that if they didn’t they would understand the greeting and that she was leading them to a table.

The table she stopped by was about half way through the restaurant, sitting tight up against the wall. A single chair on each side, like most of the tables. The designers knew their target audience. The low lighting encouraged intimacy, and strategically placed paper screens gave the suggestion of privacy. It was the perfect date night location. If they didn’t have somewhere else to be, it would have been an enticing set-up. As it was, they only had about an hour until they needed to head to the main theatre.

Their waitress replaced the hostess almost as soon as the first woman had gone, seemlessly moving around each other. With a shallow bow, she placed a tray on a small stand next to their table and began off loading bowls.

“Konbanwa. Edamame. Salad with ginger.” She named the first two bowls. “Vegetable fried rice or brown rice?” She uncovered the remaining two bowls, showing their steaming contents.

“Fried?” Clint asked, and continued at Phil’s nod. “Fried. Arigatōgozaimashita.” 

Her eyes crinkled in a hidden smile at the polite, and correct pronunciation, response. “Dōitashimashite.” Replacing the lids, she moved the fried rice bowl onto the table, and with another small bow disappeared into the half-light.

Each reaching for a salty edamame, they silently read the short menu. Deciding on what they wanted. They had barely put the small cards aside when their waitress was back.

“What can I get for you this evening?”

With a slight nod, Phil indicated Clint should go first.

“Oh, um.” He glanced down at his menu, even though he could have recited the whole thing from memory and he knew what he wanted. “The Teppan Premier combo? Izumi?” His craving for seafood would be well sated with the dishes scallops and lobster.

“Totemo yoi sensei.” She turned her dark eyes on Phil. Hands folded demurely in front of her, she hadn’t written down Clint’s order. Most places that would concern him, here where every move had so far been expertly executed he wasn’t worried.

“The Samurai Teppan premier combo. Thank you.” Phil’s spoken Japanese wasn’t anywhere near as flawless as Clint’s, his Farsi was better though, so he didn’t try.

“Mochiron.”

They were left alone again. Playing conversation chicken. Things had been good in the cabin. Light. Once they had moved into the public areas that ease had receded into awkwardness. Clint had mentally retreated back into whatever had been on his mind that morning, and Phil didn’t want to have that discussion on a limited timeframe and in a public space. Not until he was 87% certain he knew what it was, and maybe not even then depending on what it thought it might be. His best guess at the moment was something to do with his own confession of a few days earlier. A question about TAHITI.

= + =

Clint watched the condensation slide down the glass. Mind caught in one of the problems from the paper he was still slogging his way through. Greg, a friend from college, had asked him to proof a paper on the prediction of wind shear around tropical storms. Between non-stop missions and drugged periods in medical after said missions went FUBAR, he hadn’t had a chance to do more than glance look at it yet. Maybe on the sea days home? The first set of numbers was irking him, they had looked right, but something about them was off. The amount of wind shear going over mountains was incredibly difficult to predict, throw in a storm or two and it was pretty much impossible. Greg was trying to fix that, and at first glance his numbers looked good, but long experience at the stick of a Quin-jet told him it wasn’t. Maybe something with the interaction of dropping temperature and the Ekman sub-layer?

Arg, without sitting down with the numbers he wasn’t going to work out what the problem was. 

“Clint?” A hand landed on top of his, startling him back to reality.

“Hu?” Glancing around the restaurant, he didn’t see anything that warranted his attention, and if he couldn’t see it it wasn’t there to be seen. “What?” Only then did he look across the table at Phil.

The double crease of worry was sitting deep between his eyebrows. He must have been lost in thought longer than he realised.

“Are you okay?” Phil carefully laid his hand over top of Clint’s.

Before Clint could say anything, which would have been ‘yeah, find, why?’ A light hum from beside them, made them turn. Their waitress was standing their, trays in hand, needing them to move so that she could put their meals down. Quickly, they drew their hands back. Clint could feel the slightest flush of embarrassment colouring his face. Hopefully, she would think it was being caught holding Phil’s hand, not because he was embarrassed or ashamed of his relationship, but because not realised she was approaching before she had gotten within 10 feet of their table was mortifying for a SHIELD Agent.

The movement of Phil’s worry crease, to his crows feet told Clint he was just as embarrassed as he was. Phil let it drop for the first few minutes after their food arrived. Both of them focused on sorting out the little bowls and trays to get their preferred flavour combinations.

“I was thinking about the paper for Greg.” Clint answered the silent question that Phil’s eyes on the top of his slightly bent head was asking.

“Oh.” The short sound was bland. Clint’s answer wasn’t what Phil had expected, and he was now having to quickly re-evaluate wherever his own mind was at. “You’ve wanted to get to that for a while, is it going to be much work?” He caught up quickly.

There wasn’t a lot he could say about it yet. Not until he had read it through properly, but he could try and explain the gut feeling that it wasn’t going to be a simple grammar and proofs check. “Not sure.” He wiggled a hand in a flat see-saw motion. “At first glance it looks good, but I don’know.”

Between bites of sea scallops with rice, or lobster with tsukemono, he slowly stepped out a feeling rather than a thought. Phil listening attentively without adding much to the conversation. Physics wasn’t a strong point for him, but they had spent long hours of Clint bouncing ideas off him. More as a way of verbalising his thoughts which helped him organise them, rather than an expectation of Phil being able to help. The method had gotten him through two of his three degrees. Phil had spent most of his undergrad deployed and unavailable.

The hour they had to spare for dinner flew past. Clint was in the middle of a long, oft repeated grumble, about the tenure track process at NYU that Greg was fighting against when Phil glanced at his watch. “Shit.” The single word was muttered too low for Clint’s hearing aids to pick up, but he read it on the other man’s lips. Glancing at his own watch, he saw what had prompted the expletive. It was ten to nine.

Being on a floating hotel came in handy, their room number had been taken when they looked up the restaurant and booked a table earlier, so all they had to do was walk out. Exchanging Sayonaras and Oyasuminasais, they joined the trickle of people still making their own way to the large theatre at the Bow of the massive ship. The three floor, 1400 seat theatre was almost full when they pushed through the plush russet velvet curtains that dampened the outside noise. Their seats were about half way back from the stage on that floor, two seats off from centre. It gave them a spectacular view of the stage dressings designed to look like the classiest, most expensive circus Big Top that Clint had ever seen. Most of the tents he had performed in as a child had been faded canvas patched with whatever materials they could find. Ragged around the edges where shadows could hide the poverty the troupe was slipping into.

The buzz of an anticipatory crowd was the same as Clint had experienced thousands of times when it had been him on that stage or in the ring. The answering adrenaline rushing through his veins was also familiar. Knowing his body wouldn’t have the outlet, his leg was jiggling and his fingers tapping out a random rhythm on the armrest between them.

The lights flashed and then darkened, the show was about to start. Phil placed a comforting hand on his knee, stilling the leg, but let his fingers continue their manic tapping. Glancing at him, he saw that Phil was fully focused on the stage, eyes bright with excitement. Clint wasn’t yet. His ending with Carson’s had soured the Big Top for him and sitting here watching others perform wasn’t particularly appealing, instead he let his eyes roam the crowd. 

Gina’s bright red hair caught his attention quickly. The couple were sitting three rows in front and just to Clint and Phil’s right. They were in a perfect spot to watch the other couple. Clint suspected that Phil had purposely chosen the seats for that reason, but with the information already acquired and dinner the night before, they didn’t need to keep a particularly close eye on them. If he wanted, he could turn his attention to the stage and pretend he wasn’t technically here on work. He didn’t want. 

A trio of spotlights started dancing around the stage, meeting and moving away from each other again as a drum roll started, low and quiet, more a bass thrumming through his seat than a sound he could hear over the crowd. As it grew, the hum of conversation pettered off. The crowd’s attention caught. 

As the drum roll reached its crescendo, a woman in a flowing grecian gown stepped into the middle of the stage, arms held out side as the spotlights converged on her at the same time the sound stopped. Sudden silence filled the large room. Expertly, the ringmaster drew the moment out as long as she could without tipping over that point where she lost the attention that was riveted on her.

“Welcome! The Ancient World was a time of Myths and Legends. Of magic and gods. It was a place where people flew, and walked on water. For eons the magic was lost. People were chained to the ground. Join me in rediscovering the magic.” She seemed to float around the stage as she talked, her dress aiding with the illusion. Light and shadow swirling images on the walls behind her, conjuring images to go with her words. She was spellbinding, much better than Old Man Carson had ever been at convincing the audience to accept the slight of hand and smoke and mirrors that sold the acts.

Moving back to the centre she swept a bow, timed to perfection with two long pieces of deep purple silk dropping on either side of her. It was obvious to Clint that a lot of practice had gone into nailing the timing of the whole opening, glancing around he could see it was working its magic on the audience. Bright eyes were riveted to the stage.

Two silk aerialists rappelled halfway down their fabric, a lone violin started, a second and then a third picking up the melody. The two artists were also in modified greek robes, shorter to allow the free movement they needed. The woman was in silvers and deep blue, the man in gold and yellow. By the end, the two performers were swinging between their lengths of silk, swapping and then sharing and then parting again. The bottoms of the silks flying like triumphal flags. A sun on one and a moon on the other. As the last notes of the song echoed through the theatre, they rolled themselves back up their silks, taking the fabric with them. Re-ascending into the sky.

A rolling cloud of fog replaced the silks. The Ring Master’s voice echoed, and rebounded around the room. The sound of a symphony started up, a cymbal predominant. A large wheel, already moving in its cradle appeared, deep blue lights shining through the fog, gave the man inside an almost fae appearance. His movements smooth and continual as he propelled the wheel around. Clint had only seem one German Wheel act better, a woman who had only spent one season with Carson the year after Clint and Barney had joined the troupe. She had quickly been snapped up by a bigger outfit. Clint couldn’t even remember her name.

The wheel was followed by an uninspiring knife act acting out the fall and return of Hephaestus a drum and trumpet piece as soundtrack. It was boring, his had been so much better. A quick look at Phil showed he wasn’t as interested in this one as the previous acts. His own knife throwing was better than this guy.

And then a partner balancing act with added juggling. All of them were excellent displays of talent, but having grown up around it, it was just more of the same really. Watching the crowd kept him more occupied. The awe that shone in most people’s faces. He spent the magic show picking out the people who had been dragged here by their partners, their expressions bored with varying degrees of interest painted over to hide the boredom.

A soft, piano scale grew and swept across the crowd. A couple turned and swirled out onto the stage, drawn with the music. The only light a single spotlight, the rest of the stage lost in dark shadows. Both on pointe, they moved within their small circle of slight as if they were a single person. One an extension of the other. As she twisted away from him, her long flowing skirt fluttered off her body, one end held in her hand and the other in his. The piece of fabric was used to draw her in and send her out. It was a Burlesque act unlike anything Clint had seen before. The skirt and the man in place of the feather fans. For the first time, Clint was enraptured. The story of Persephone and Hades playing out on the stage in front of him. ‘Hades’ moving out of the light as he retreated to the underworld, and the shadows lightening with green light when she moved out of the spotlight to join him. The give and take was almost more compelling as the gradual loss of both their clothing. As the music reached its crescendo, their were both down to little  more than underwear, but the movement of their bodies, the interplay of shadows and lights and the long silk skirt gave the impression of modesty.

He was on his feet clapping with everyone else. The lights came up and the couple came to the edge of the stage and bowed. After the first bow, the rest of the troupe joined them. The clapping increased, but in the brighter light Clint’s sharp eyes caught something he had missed in the dim mood lighting of the show.

“Holy shit.” He breathed. He knew the woman from the burlesque act.

“Clint?” Phil had stopped clapping at his husband’s soft exclamation. “What’s wrong?” He quickly began scanning the crowd, looking for a threat that wasn’t there.

“Oh, nothing. Sorry.” ONly retroactively did he realise how what he said could be taken. “I think I know one of the performers.” It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his eyes, it was that it had been over 20 years since he had seen her and they had both grown and changed a lot in that time. “Can we…”He waved his hand around in a way that to him suggested ‘stay here and wait and see if I can talk to her’ but probably came of as ‘deranged hand flapping’. Luckily they had been together long enough htat Phil figured out what he meant, or at least was willing to wait and see.

The rest of the audience began to stream out, the babble of excited voices discussing their favourite parts filled the air. With only a thin trickle of people left wandering past them, they were able to go against the flow and make their way to the little door next to the stage.

Clint wrapped his knuckles against the wood. There would still be someone around even if the performers had already scarpered. He could hear movement on the other side. The shouts and thuds of stage hands doing their work. He knocked again.

“What?” The word was shouted in his face as a man a head shorter than him ripped the door open.

Clint stumbled back a step. “Umm.” He said unintelligently.

“We were wondering if we could meet the woman doing the Burlesque routine? She’s an old friend.” Phil stepped in.

“Anise.” Clint added. Two random guys asking after the woman who had been almost naked on stage would be suspicious.

“Coltrane?” The guy looked a little confused, a lot suspicious, and maybe, hopefully willing to help.

“Uh, she was still Ruud when I knew her.” Clint was finding his footing. “Just tell her Hawkeye says Hi and we’ll be in the um, Rising Tide Bar? If she wants to see me.” Better to leave it to her, the message might actually be passed on then.

“Sure. Whatever.” The door was slammed in their face.

“Fancy a drink?” Clint asked with a shrug and a pleading expression.

= + =

They had go up several levels to get to the bar, the corridor outside the theatre had emptied as they had waited inside. With most of the ships occupants higher in the vessel where the nightlife was centred it took a while for the car to get down to them. They stood in comfortable silence while they waited.

Deck eight, where they stepped out of the glass box, was still brimming with life, midnight was still early for a good percentage of the guests. Women in cocktail dresses and men in suits were mixed in with pensioners still in their Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirts. Nowhere else would you find such a mix of people so close together.

Weaving between people, they came to the large pillars that supported the platform the bar was on. It was gimmicky to the extreme, but the same part of Clint that loved being high up where he could see everything was fascinated. The different angles that would be offered by the slow rise and fall.

A single table was free, pushed up against the bar it cut off some of their sightlines, but it would have to do. They each ordered a drink and settled in, Clint with a fruity mocktail that if anyone they knew back home saw him with he would be mocked for life, and Phil with a top shelf whiskey neat.

“One drink. We don’t know if she is going to get the message or even come.” Phil cautioned. He wanted Clint to have a chance at reconnecting, but wouldn’t hold his breath. “You knew her at Carson’s?” It was always a gamble to ask about pretty much anything in Clint’s childhood, but if that’s where they knew each other from, it would come up.

“Yeah. She was a couple years younger than me, but we ran together ‘cause there wasn’t really anyone else. Her parents were acrobats.” Clint twirled the paper umbrella through the cherry coloured ice in his glass. 

Their drinks were slowly consumed. Clint regaling Phil with stories of some of the trouble he and Anise, and sometimes Barney, had gotten into. His eyes got sad when his brother was featured, but overall the memories were happy ones. Even if the woman never showed, it was nice to see Clint remembering the good parts of those years.

“Man, I don’t think Katrin ever forgave me. She had loved that scarf but couldn’t get too angry because Anise was so proud of the teddy bear.” He finished with a laugh.

“She forgave you eventually.” A new voice interjected from behind the blonde man. “She just didn’t want you to try it with any of her other scarves.” The grin on the tiny woman’s face was impish. Long golden hair was tied back in a loose braid that fell to her hips and eyes the colour of pale green sea glass sparkled down at him.

“Anise!” Clint almost sent his chair toppling with the force of jumping up to wrap her in a tight hug which was returned. A man behind her, met Phil’s eye over their shoulders, an indulgent grin on his face.

“I almost didn’t believe it when Scotty told me! But of course it’s you. How are you? Where did you end up? Ringling Brothers like you always dreamed?” She threw questions at him faster than a machine gun fired. 

“Anise. Breathe.” The man interrupted before she could continue, although Clint just laughed in the face of the barrage. “Hello, I am Jack.” He held out a large palm to Clint and then Phil, giving them each a firm but unthreatening handshake.

The smile on her face was sheepish. Manners hadn’t been high on the curriculum for the kids of Carsons.

The small table Clint and Phil had been waiting at only had two seats. Phil gathered his jacket from the back of the chair and the four of them got off the next time the platform reached a floor. Walking through the slightly thinner crowd, taking over a table in the corner of a different cocktail lounge, Dazzles. Clint and Anise had both giggled at the name. Drinks acquired and settled at their table, talk flowed freely. The two old friends catching up on twenty years of missed life, while Phil and Jack awkwardly made conversation. Discussing baseball and music, Jack was a musician on board and they quickly found a shared love of early Jazz.

“You two are cute together.” Anise smiled at him as they watched their husbands debate the impact of free jazz on the sound of the modern genre. They had caught up on the major, unclassified, parts of their lives and had settled down to chatting about their day to day friends and jobs. Anise, still in contact with a small group of other old Carson hands had passed some gossip and held ‘hello’s from Clint in mind for next time she talked to them.

Clint felt the smile on his face freeze, stretching uneasily across his skull. They were good together, when they were allowed to be together. They balanced each other. But when they were hiding from so many people, how could that ease translate into the rest of their lives?

“Clint? What’s wrong?” Anise, lent in. Voice quiet. She could see the unhappiness on his face.

“Nothing.” He relaxed his face and allowed his eyes to open. It was an expression he had worked for a long time and the only two people who had ever see through it were Phil and Tash.

“Mhm.” She hummed, sceptical but willing to let it drop. A yawn cracking the end of the sound.

Clint glanced down at the matte black rough terrain watch that had been his five year anniversary present from Phil. It was much later into the night than he had realised, startled he glanced around to find that they were the only table still occupied in the bar. A single, bored, bartender the only other person present.

“Oh. Crap. You probably need to sleep!” He remembered how draining performing day in day out was, and if she got something wrong, a missed target wasn’t going to be her biggest worry. A fall from the silks could permanently end her career, or even life. “We should let you go.” The other two had stopped talking at his exclamation. Phil making a noise of agreement when he checked the time.

They had already exchanged emails, and after effusive promises to try and meet for another drink, probably on a sea day, the two couples parted ways. Anise and Jack slipping behind a staff door quickly, while Phil and Clint headed for the stairs by unspoken agreement. They had spent most of the evening sitting down and a last chance to stretch their legs before bed was welcome. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Silks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsN7E35LpJE  
> German Wheel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTgQIEqd5Ac  
> Knife throwing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9jqKwuzQIE  
> Burlesque/ Ballet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWaYWsNW5ew


	18. Day 6: Gambling is a Fool's Errand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently, I missed a chapter earlier on. I have since added it in. It is now Chapter 9 Day: 8. Every other chapter has been moved forward and the numbers fixed to allow for this. I am so sorry for the mix up, but hey bright side is you get lots of new work to read today.

Phil woke to bright white light burning through his eyelids and a too warm weight at his back. Cracking a single eye open, he blearily took in the time. With a groan he shut it again. It was hours later than they normally got up, but he felt hungover from the long day of sun, and late night of drinking. Not that he drank all that much.

Burying his head under the pillow, he tried to go back to sleep. Eyes scrunched closed against the light and sheets kicked off to try and cool down in the sticky tropical heat. A rough hand, patted down the side of his hip awkwardly until it could curl into the suffocating fabric and pull it back over them. Clint preferred the warmth. Flopping over, he dropped a kiss against the sleep warm skin and then ripped the sheet of and let it drop to the floor and his side of the bed, where it was out of Clint’s reach.

“Aww, sheet. No.” Clint whined sleepily. The only reason Phil was able to hear him from where his head was under the pillow and Clint’s face was scrunched into the down filled fabric, was because without his hearing aids in, he hadn’t gotten the volume right.

The room quieted again, neither of them ready to get up.

He was half dozing when he felt the bed shift, Clint was getting up. A clenching in his stomach and overly full bladder was telling him he couldn’t loaf around in bed much longer. He listened as Clint shuffled and mumbled his way out of the bedroom and then the gush of water through pipes. Finally when the bathroom door opened again, he rolled himself out of bed and followed his husband’s example. Most pressing matter attended to he strolled back into the main part of the cabin. Limbs loose and easy from sleep and sun.

The cabin was quiet. Checking the bedroom and balcony he found at in the few minutes that he had been using the facilities Clint had left. For a long moment he stood flummoxed in the middle of the cabin, unsure of what to do. It wasn’t a feeling he liked. He wanted to confront him, but he had allowed Phil to withdraw and deal with his shit for months, shouldn’t he do the same in return?

Yes, he should. He grudgingly allowed. He wouldn’t ignore that Clint had disappeared again, but he wouldn’t let it blow up either. For now he would get ready for the day and see what happened.

= + =

Clint lay in bed for a long time after waking up in the early hours. He didn’t want to not be there when Phil woke up, but getting back to sleep wasn’t an option either. So, he lay there and thought. About the coincidence of running into Anise after all this time, about TAHITI and how it explained so much of what had been going on for months, and about SHIELD in general. He had been with the agency for almost seven years. He had joined up because Phil had asked, the idea of knowing what Phil was doing appealed. But really, when the offer had come, he had accepted because he had been bored. Missing the adrenalin rush of the Marines and knowing he was helping people with his work. Academia had been great, but it was sheltered from the rest of the world. 

But he had done a lot since then. Given Tasha a home, and helped countless people around the world. He knew he had a shelf life, his body was only going to get more beat-up. Maybe it was time to hang up the bow while he still could. If he held on too long, and got someone hurt or killed because he had slowed down, he would never forgive himself. Even worse if it was Tasha or Phil. Even Sitwell. 

Phil moving around behind him, and a quick kiss on the top of his spine, told him he could get up. The other man never went back to sleep once he woke up. Clint was normally the champion napper in their relationship.

Giving it another minute for the other man to settle or start something, he clambered awkwardly out of bed and grumbled his way to the bathroom. He may have neglected to tell Medical about a twisted knee to go with the concussion he had reported after Mayotte, and he had tweaked it again yesterday. Overnight it had seized up a little and made walking a more precarious proposition than normal.

Balancing on one leg while pissing, he flexed the joint back and forth, working the stiffness out of it. Walking a bit easier, he left the bathroom in search of clothes. And then coffee his increasingly sleep deprived brain insisted.

Scribbling a quick, ‘gone for coffee’ on a scrap of paper, he ducked out while Phil was in the bathroom. Not to avoid him, the need for caffeine and food was just too strong. He would swing into the Starbucks for drinks and muffins or some shit and be back before Phil realised he was gone. Seeing the line snaking out the doors, he realised there wasn’t a chance in hell of making the run quick. With a sigh he shuffled onto the end of the line. He knew he needed to talk to Phil, but couldn’t face that conversation without being more awake, and neither could he put it off further.

Mercifully, the line moved quickly. Everyone ordering without too much um’ing and ah’ing. An internal clock still told it wasn’t fast enough. Really, why he thought he would manage it, he wasn’t sure. His own order of two plain black drip coffees from the pre-made pot and a couple of muffins was quickly ordered and quickly assembled. Two minutes after reaching the counter he was squeezing back out the door around people waiting for the fancy drinks that took forever.

Juggling cups and the bag of muffins as he tried to get the key card out of the back pocket of his bright purple swim shorts and into the lock, the door opened in his face.

“Oh.” He says.

“Um.” Phil says.

Both of them frozen in the doorway, not enough room for Phil to get out or Clint to get in.

“Um.” Clint added. “Coffee?” He held the cups up unnecessarily.

“I thought you’d disappeared again.” Phil didn’t move.

“Nope. Coffee.” If he had a hand free he would have slapped himself.

Across the threshold, Phil’s eyes crinkled in amusement and finally stepped backwards into the cabin, letting Clint in. He turned sideways and slipped in around Phil. Once snide, he held out the drink carried, offering one of the paper cups which was accepted with a slight smile. They both took their first fortifying mouthfuls of coffee, or Clint did, Phil just super at his, standing in the small entry way.

Clearing his throat, he tried to start an intelligent sentence. “Sit? And, um. Talk?” He waved the muffins at the balcony. The boat had docked in the early hours, but their cabin looked back out to sea, a small stony promontory the only hint of land out their window.

The moved through the stuffy air of the cabin and onto the too bright balcony, nowhere really comfortable while the wait of secrets and discontent sat between them. Avoiding each other’s eyes, they continued to drink their coffee and pick at the muffins, cranberry of all things. Squirming in his seat, Clint gave in first.

“Are we ever going to tell people?” The question made sense in his brain, the problem having been tumbling around for a while, but it was obviously a complete non-sequitur for Phil. The crease between his eyebrows growing. Moving from mild concern to full blown confusion.

“Tell who what?” Phil set kind but confused eyes on him. Clint could feel them resting on the top of his down-turned head. Looking for some explanation for Clint’s squirrelly behaviour.

“Jasper, Maria. Everyone.” He thought it was a good enough explanation, but the sigh Phil heaved suggested it wasn’t. “About this.” He waved a hand between them.

“About the mission?” Phil was looking at him like he suspected he had lost it. “Clint, they already know about this. Their running it.” The words were slow, trying to figure out whatever Clint was trying say.

Clint could feel himself levelling a dirt look at Phil but couldn’t help it. Their eyes finally meeting, confusion in one and frustration and a touch of sadness in the other. It was the unexpected sadness that had Phil moving without thought. Standing from his seat, he wedged himself in next to Clint, his proximity hopefully providing some level of reassurance.

“About us.” Clint whispered the words. The damage done from years of people abandoning him when he asked for too much still holding a deep part of his psyche hostage. Phil had spent years trying to root out that insecurity, but every now and again it made a comeback. Particularly around Phil and their relationship. It was too important to Clint to risk it.

“Oh.” Unexpected understanding had Phil sitting back slightly, eyes leaving Clint as he lost himself in thought. He hadn’t realise Clint was unhappy with the secrecy, it had been a part of their relationship from the second they had tumbled into bed together, both of them risking their commissions with the internationally intolerant American military. He had never really thought about the being open with the people they worked with. A little part of him got a thrill from creeping around, from keeping this monumental secret from the best spies in the world.

Clint wearily watched as Phil retreated. Physically moving away from him at the request, face turned away and breaking eye contact. He knew it, he mentally kicked himself. It was too much. That step too far that would have him alone again. Fuck. Fuck. He instinctively curled in on himself, making a smaller target if it turned violent, not that he thought Phil would. He hugged the almost empty coffee cup to his chest, seeking any source of heat to combat the icy heartbreak cracking his heart.

“Oh.” Phil said again. “If you want to. I guess. I never really thought about it. Why now? Why not when you first joined?”

“I never wanted, but you said.” A touch of confusion was creeping into his own thoughts. Phil was the one who wanted to keep them secret, let him get established under his own abilities.

Clint’s answer had him looking at the other man sharply. Seeing the growing hurt there, he lent back in, pressing the length of himself against Clint from shoulder to toe, needing to chase that away so it couldn’t take hold. “I never.” Phil stopped and took a deep breath. A niggling at the back of his mind was telling him there was something deeper going on here that he was missing. “Can we start at the beginning? Why do you think I want to keep us secret?”

“Fury. In my orientation meeting with him. He said it would be better for both of us if we didn’t advertise our previous connection. He said you agreed.” Clint’s voice was a mix of accusation and surliness. 

“Fury? Why would? Marcus?” Phil’s brain had shut down at the thought that his oldest friend had a hand in this cluster fuck.

Clint had only worked with Marcus Johnson once before the Army Colonel had re-invented himself as Agent Nicholas Fury. And even that hadn’t been close, just a blink and you miss it infiltration that was still mention it and get black bagged and never seen again, classified. Phil on the other hand, had worked with the other man for years. Almost from the moment he had moved across into the Rangers. Underneath the Boss/Employee relationship they would always be friends, brothers in blood even if it wasn’t their own.

Gathering his thoughts, Phil started again. “Fury said? What did Marcus say?”

 “Clint?” Phil asked, when he had been silent for too long.

“It would hurt us both. At work. People would think you were compromised and that I had slept my way into a job, or promotion.” He mumbled into his drink, unable to meet his eye. He had been so worried about other agents respecting his skill when he first joined he hadn’t questioned it, it had made sense. But now looking at Phil’s face, he maybe thought there had been more going on than he had realised at the time. “Was that not?” Even having known Fury for over a decade, he still couldn’t read the other man, and wouldn’t have had a chance six years ago.

“Fuck.” Phil scrubbed a hand through his hair, fluffing up the light brown strands until he looked like an annoyed fledgling. “Fuck.” He repeated. “That was probably part of it, but it’s just as much one of his stupid fucking games. His need to control everything. Portions of SHIELD would have baulked at us working together, but Fury would have partnered us together anyway. It just made it easier for him. No need to fight any of the old schoolers.” He flopped back into his chair had he explained, mind tripping over the possibilities, There was a rumour that had gone around soon after Clint joined, he knew his husband had never caught wind of it, but it also played a part in all of this bullshit. Would it hurt or help to tell him at this point?

He glared at the floor of the balcony above them as he played it all out. Examined all of the consequences of letting this truth out.

In the end, no matter how Clint reacted, he deserved the truth after being lied to for so long.

“Do you remember the Madrid Op?” Phil asked, the less he had to re-hash the better.

“Um.. You were on it when I started. Kept being sent to Europe and shit?” It wasn’t one he had been specifically read in on, but wasn’t so high level that some of the details hadn’t leaking into the general agent population.

“It was a cover, or for me it was. I needed a reason to be in Europe and Britain. We were going after O’Connell, he was the UK’s seat on the World Security Council. Fury was lining him up to get removed. He knew people in SHIELD. I was in as myself.” He was stalling and they both knew it. “It was a honeypot.” There wasn’t any way to soften the blow.

“What?” Still fury strangled any the word. Clint didn’t often get overcome by anger, but when it did, it was like he was the eye of a cyclone, still and quiet as chaos raged around him. No matter what, they had agreed when Phil had joined the agency, that Clint hadn’t known the name to at the time, that he would never take a honeypot mission. A single kiss, causal touches were ok, but anything more was a hard no. He stood up, sending Phil to the floor from where he had been leaning against the archer. “You what?” His chest felt like he had just run a marathon or been under water too long. Struggling to get the air he needed. “I can’t. I.” He turned and walked out. 

“CLINT! WAIT! Let me explain.”

He was just pulling the door open when Phil caught up to him, delayed slightly by the surprise meeting with the floor. A heavy hand dropped onto his shoulder.

“I didn’t sleep with him. I would never.” 

The woman of an older couple walking passed their open door threw him a dirty look, having caught what he was saying. Young people these days, no sense of propriety or loyalty. She sniffed at him judgementally as they continued down the hallways.

“Please.” The word was tired. It felt like everything had been a battle recently. He was so used to his relationship with Clint being easy, apparently too easy with Clint biting his tongue and not confronting Phil about the problems that he didn’t even know where there.

Clint hesitated before he closed the door and they both knew it. He stayed facing the door, not turning around to face Phil and not letting go of the handle. He would listen but it had better be good.

It hurt, but Phil understood. “O’Connell was the most extreme voice of a group of extremists on the Council. Half of their cliché were followers with a few core members. Remove them and SHIELD could operate properly, instead of being used for one up-manship, personal army, and political manipulation. Hill and I were the only one’s Fury trusted to be read in.”

Clint’s shoulders weren’t loosening as he talked, but they also weren’t getting tighter.

“Hill isn’t his type.” They were getting into the part of the story that could go either way. He hadn’t done anything, but he had been hiding it for years. He wouldn’t be able to hide behind classified and need to know. Clint wouldn’t care. “It started before you joined. I would happen to be in the same place having dinner, a cigar club, and the theatre. Always alone or on a first date. Enough to catch his eye. He approached me a few weeks after I brought you in. Took me to dinner. He liked the idea of getting under Agent Coulson’s skin.” Disgust laced the last bit, he hated the reputation he had but appreciated its usefulness. 

“The next time it was a stripe joint.”

Clint’s shoulders were getting tenser, he didn’t like what he was hearing. That it hadn’t been a one off thing.

“And then a BDSM club. He made me watching, thinking I would have preferred to be played with. It was.” He had to stop. It had taken a long time for the image of that young man, Andy his name had been Andy, in a private suite to not be burned into his eyelids, he still dreamt about it sometimes. “ _ He was _ out of control.” He knew he had to finish the story, but he needed some space, so air. He left Clint where he was in front of the door, moving back into the cabin. Talking to the air rather than the other man. “It was enough to get him removed. He is currently living on his estate in Cornwall, hasn’t left in six months. What he did to that boy, I won’t let him do it again. And if he had tried to put a finger on me I would have broken it and everything attached to it.” He turned back around. Trying to see if Clint believed him. “I swear.” 

Tension still ran through Clint’s body, but it had morphed from hurt to anger. Phil hoped it was on behalf of Andy, who O’Connell had left bleeding out on that mahogany floor, and not at Phil.

“Was he ok?” Clint whispered.

Phil couldn’t answer, the thick cloying smell of too much blood sticking the word in his throat. The odd ‘ung’ noise that emerged was answer enough though.

“I’m sorry.” Clint was finally looking at him again, the anger was definitely for the Andy.

Phil nodded in acceptance. They both knew it was an empty platitude, that there wasn’t really anything either of them could say to make it better.

“I promise Clint, I never broke my word.” Phil wanted to reach out, to reassure the other man physically. He had to let Clint come to him though. It had to be up to him. “I never knew that Fury asked you to keep us secret. He and I will be having words when we get back to New York.” There would be loud words, and lots of them.

Clint must have seen the truth in Phil’s eyes because he reach out a hand. “Okay.”

Phil was grasping that lifeline as soon as it was offered. He knew it wouldn’t be that simple, that there would be more conversations going forward. But hopefully that was the worst behind them. They stood there in silence, holding hands. Each of them trying to reconcile the last half hour. 

Clint’s stomach grumbling broke the stillness.

“Breakfast?” Phil asked with shaky smile.

Clint’s smile was more even. “More like lunch, but sure.”

Hand in hand, they make their way out of the practically deserted ship. Most of the other holiday makers already on-shore, enjoying the sun, sand, and surf.

= + =

“Oh! There’s a restaurant called Shipwreck Beach Bar!” Clint pointed at an artistically ramshackle building further down the beach. Who wouldn’t want to eat there? It looked awesome.

“No.”

Apparently Phil didn’t want to eat there.

“What? Why not?” Clint squawked. 

Phil looked back at him with his blandest Agent Coulson face. “It’s tempting fate. With your luck we would end up shipwrecked.”

That was a fair point actually. Clint had the worst numbers in SHIELD for things going unexpectedly, and spectacularly, sideways. Like that time in Madagascar his chopper had literally dropped out of the sky the day after he had watched Black Hawk Down. Phil had banned that movie after they managed to get Clint back to base. 

“Fair.” They continued wandering up the beach. Soaking up the other’s presence without filling the air with mindless chatter. By unspoken agreement, they moved out of the sun into the shade of an open air restaurant another few hundred feet down the beach. A tin roof held up by a minimalist timber frame gave spectacular views out over the white sand and crystal blue water. A few tables were already occupied by locals trying to get their lunch in before the tourists descended.

Spying a pay phone on the back wall, he dropped a kiss on Phil’s cheek and stepped away. Letting his hand go for the first time since their argument. “Order me the chicken. I’m going to call in.” He tilted his head to show where he was going.

“Sure.” A small smile graced Phil’s face. Bringing his crow’s feet out in full force and setting his eyes fucking  _ sparkling _ . Just because he was following mission procedure? Weird.

He sauntered his way across the room, giving his ass a bit more sway than was really needed. Phil may or may not have been watching, but why not out on a show if he is?

Clint grinned at the phone. It was a fucking rotary! That was awesome! Twisting in the number for SHIELD masquerading as an automated voicemail service, he waited for it to connect.

“Hey mom. As promised I’m touching base. We are in St Kitts today. The trip has been amazeballs. I have so many photos and stories for when we get back! Sorry I missed you. Talk soon.” The receiver gave a hearty clunk when he put it back. He returned to the table just as a waitress was leaving. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her throw him a flirty smirk, in plain view he put his left hand on Phil’s shoulder, ring on full display. Nudging his husband over, he slid onto the bench next to him, rather than sitting across the table, like a heathen.

Too used to Clint’s constant need for physical proximity, Phil obligingly moved over and made room for him. Wedged in together on the short piece of wood, Phil draped an arm around Clint’s shoulders to free up a bit of room.

“Did I tell you Maria was dating a primary school teacher?” Phil said out of nowhere.

“What? No. What? How are you  _ just  _ bringing this up  _ now _ and not the second you found out?” The words tumbled over themselves after the initial yelp.

“While I was out the drinks with Maria and Jasper? I should have left and found you to tell you that she was seeing someone?” 

The mischievous glint in Phil’s eyes told him he knew exactly what he was doing. Fucker.

“Yes.” He said petulantly, but gave it up quickly. “Or texted. There are these things we have that allow virtually instantaneous communication from anywhere in the world.”

Phil raised an eyebrow at him, smirking.

Yeah, modern communication technology so wasn’t what he wanted to discuss. “A primary school teacher? Really? I could see like a kick-ass fighter pilot or something, but someone who wrangled ten year olds. Nu-ah. No.”

Phil’s smirk broadened into a full smile. “That’s what Jasper said.”

Oh, “Bullshit.” There was no way Clint and Sitwell agreed on something. No way, no how.

The rest of lunch passed between bursts of laughter and wandering hands. More food than two people should ever eat in one sitting, or day, was demolished and groaning, they shuffled from the restaurant. The other tables had filled up and emptied around them as they had lingered over tiny, cups of strong coffee. 

Full of good food and sleepy from sun and the emotional hang-over of the morning, they opted for hiring a couple of chairs and an umbrella on the beach on the other side of the low headland from the cruise ship dock. It wasn’t the nicest beaches on the island, but it was close to the ship and quiet, most of the other holiday makers opting for the better Cockleshell or Turtle beach.

Clint left Phil with the chairs. Wandering back in the direction of the ship. He didn’t feel like swimming but wanted something to distract his mind so he didn’t spent the afternoon picking over the argument from that morning. He was ok with it, but knew himself well enough to know he would dwell and second guess it all if he was left to his own devices. Instead he could use the down time and finally make some progress on Greg’s paper.

The swarm of people around the loading dock of the ship didn’t really register as he crossed the wide concrete dock. All of the people moving around were in the cruise line's uniform and it made sense that they on- and off-loaded cargo and supplies at each port. 

Laptop bag in hand, a change in the make-up of the people moving around the loading dock. Instead of the sky blue and khaki uniform of the cruise company, men in head to toe black moved silently in and out of the hold. There was coordination to their movements that the earlier group hadn’t had. The boxes they were moving were unmarked, rough wood clean and new in the bright sunlight. It was a vast different from the contained chaos desperately trying to fit dirty cardboard boxes of lettuce and polystyrene cold boxes of fresh fish into a limited space. 

The unmarked wood reminded Clint of the description Phil had given of boxes of medicine being guarded by men in the same ‘I’m a hired gun’ outfit as these guys. Clint’s curiosity was piqued when what he assumed was an overseer started yelling at two of the men who had dropped one of the crates they were trying to get onto the ship. Gleaming metal and dark leather crashed across the concrete from the split wood. The bright sunlight glinted menacingly off the chrome. Whatever that was it wasn’t medication. Maybe medical equipment, but them why was it being transported in a cruise ship and not a clean cargo container?

Watching the equipment be swept back together and hustled into the dark of the ship, he had a pretty good idea where his night was going to be spent, climbing through the vents and sneaking through the back hallways trying to find whatever the hell that all was.

= + =

Phil was half dozing in the wide circle of shade their umbrella was casting. Time moving languidly in the hot Caribbean air. The period between when Clint had wandered back towards the ship and when he dropped into the chair next to Phil was a hazy of salt and the white noise of the crash of waves. The other man’s unmoving form on the other chair, upright and rigid, prompted Phil to push his shades up onto the top of his head and turn to look at the other man.

It wasn’t anger, or fear pulling Clint’s shoulders tight. The corresponding contraction of his neck muscles were missing from where he would be holding himself in tight control if it had been, the fear of turning into his father always having him pull rather than push out with his bigger negative emotions. It was more reminiscent of confusion, of having seen or heard something that he couldn’t quite reconcile with what he already knew about something. 

“Clint?” He broke the silence but otherwise stayed where he was, not wanting to startle him.

“Hmm?” Phil could only see him in profile and not very well at that. The contrast of sharp sunlight and grey shadow smoothing the planes of his face.

“What happened?”

“Those boxes. From the hold. They were in wooden crates right?” Clint still wasn’t looking at him, watching the waves lap and curl over the sand instead.

“Yes. Why?” Phil sat up, this wasn’t a ‘I saw a weird bird’ thing, this was a ‘something weird just happened that might impact the mission’ thing. They looked the same but were vastly different in outcome. Except that one time in Paraguay where they were one and the same, that fucking Rhea bird.

“I just saw the goons in black moving them out of the ship.” Clint said, distracted as his mind tripped through water it was that he had seen.

“Smuggling.” As they had assumed at the time. “Makes sense they would off-load here. It’s central for a lot of the smaller islands. Less work to distribute their product.” It sounded like it was a ‘weird bird’ situation.

Clint hummed, unsatisfied. “I’m not so sure. They were bringing stuff back on board. Mechanical. I think we should check it out.” The cut comms had been bothering him, it didn’t match up with smugglers. Too sophisticated. 

“Ok.” Phil wasn’t going to argue with that. He hadn’t seen what Clint saw and was happy to trust his judgement. If he thought it was worth checking out, they would.

There wasn’t anything they could do that afternoon. Instead, taking the opportunity to settle back on their chairs and enjoy the beach as much as they could. Phil dozing in the warmth and Clint flicking a red pen back and forth across the pages Greg had asked him to look at. His first assumption that there was something wrong with the numbers proving accurate. Proofing the paper was going to be a much bigger job than he had thought it was going to be, Greg was normally better with his data. 

Huffing at yet another logical error, caught Phil smirking at him out of the corner of his eye. “Shut up.” He muttered, a smirk pulling at his own lips. His eyes didn’t leave the paper.

“I didn’t say anything.” Phil shuffled further down into his seat, stretching his back and arms in a show of ‘who? Me? No. I’m innocent’. It was a poor effort on Super Spy Coulson’s part.

“Ah, hu.” The casual teasing was nice. More normal. “Just like you didn’t do anything to dinner on our third anniversary?” Clint had gotten Phil cooking classes for their fourth anniversary. They were not appreciated. 

Phil ignored the jab. He had long ago made peace with his ability to burn water. Once literally. There had been flames. He still wasn’t sure how that had happened and so far, he had managed to keep that particular incident from Clint. “How disappointed is Greg going to be?”

“He has to be insane to think this data works, so either very or not at all? Who can say how a crazy person will react?” He said it flippantly, faking unconcern. In truth it wasn’t that, there had been an error in the first set of calculations which had caused cascading logic errors and the conclusions had been built around that. 

“Send cake.” Phil suggested.

Cake was always better than flowers, in Clint’s opinion at least. You could eat cake, whereas flowers just died.

“Red velvet or peanut butter and chocolate?”

“Hmm. Strawberry.” Greg didn’t seem like a chocolate sort of guy to Phil.

The last of the long evening light faded as they discussed cake flavours and matches versus different icing flavours. It was an easy conversation that ebbed and flowed naturally. Sometimes petering off as Clint worked out a bit of maths, but being picked up again easily. The final consensus was an angel food cake with a lemon cream cheese frosting. Clint thought that the light cake would match well with the richer topping, while Phil enjoyed the irony of a bit of bite from the citrus and the bite of the scrawl of red pen across a previously complete academic paper.

Phil was an asshole like that.

= + =

There was a slight queue to get back on-board. They had left it until the last minute to go back, ending up with a tour of the reefs who had gotten stuck when the guide misjudged the water’s depth on a shoal, and were running late. The kids were over-tired and grumpy, and their parents weren’t much better, complaining about the delay as the staff tried to get everyone checked back on.

Clint and Phil loitered behind them, happy to wait until the big group cleared out. The ship wasn’t going to leave without them after all.

Leaning into Phil’s shoulder, Clint asked, “Any preference for tonight?” They had a few hours to kill before they could check-out the new, questionable cargo.

He didn’t respond right away, taking a moment to mentally run through the options. He felt like something a bit more involved than sitting back and watching a show, but didn’t want to be on show himself. The glitz and energy of the casino was appealing. He knew Clint disliked Roulette, he couldn’t help projecting where something was going to land and he had been pulled into more than one Pit Boss’ office for cheating over the years, he couldn’t turn it off. It was a neat parlour trick, or opening for missions but not so good for having fun. 

He did like poker though.

“The Casino? They should have a table of poker?”

The bright flash of white teeth in a golden face was unspoken agreement. They hadn’t had a particularly physical day, but the heat and humidity left them both feeling damp and sticky enough to want showers before finding dinner.

Phil spent the time he was waiting for Clint to finish, sorting the data they had been passively collecting from Riesgraf’s laptop over the last few days. Categorising the personal and professional and then flagging any suspicious accounts. It wasn’t strictly his job, but it would save the analysts time and he needed something to amuse himself while Clint took way took long futzing with his hair, making sure it was perfectly spiked in a ‘I don’t care’ way.

Eventually, Clint emerged in low hanging jeans that hugged his ass and thighs perfectly, and a tight black button down that barely contained his chest and shoulders.  Phil took a minute to appreciate the view. 

They opted for dinner in the Main Dining Room. Sharing a table with a couple from Toronto who were on their Honeymoon. Phil wrapped himself in his bland accountant persona while Clint left his story a bit closer to the truth, ex-Marine and now just happy to be married, implying he was a house-husband. It was an easy enough sell, very few people looked at Phil and saw Army Ranger turned Secret Agent BAMF, even when he had been at the height of either career he had mostly passed under the radar. Clint could never been mistaken for a white-collar office worker. His biceps were bigger than some people’s heads, and without the accompanying ‘roid-rage, he couldn’t pass as a standard gym junkie.

Their dining companions were blandly normal, a high school teacher and a government office drone. Nice enough but boring. And more interested in feeling each other up under the table than talking to their older by at least a decade, dinner companions. 

Neither couple lingered over coffee.

The Casino was bustling but not full. He had noticed that it was never really empty, except in the very early hours and even then there was a swarm of cleaners picking up after the guests. But the true crowds wouldn’t descend for another hour or two, not until most of the dinner rush was over. 

Taking up almost half a floor, the sprawling gambling complex was the overdone reds and golds of so many casinos around the world.  The dealers were in the usual white button down with black slacks and a vest. Phil supposed the familiar surroundings was comfortable for itinerant gamblers and shiny and new to those guests that weren’t frequent gamblers. 

They didn’t cut a direct path to the poker tables sitting in the back of the room. Wandering past the flashing lights and bells of the slot machines, stopped to watch a few hands of blackjack. They bypassed the Roulette tables, just like he thought they would, in favour of stepping up to the bar. He ordered a scotch for himself and a coke for Clint. Drinks in hand, they drifted towards the quieter tables. The high-stake games were behind closed doors, buffered from the distraction of the glitz and glam. That wasn’t what they were here for, a few hands at a low-stakes table to pass the time and have some fun.

Settling at the last table, with as clear views across the rest of the room as possible, they were playing against a young woman and a man a few years older than Phil. They weren’t together. They watched the end of the hand being played. Sipping at their drinks and getting a feel for the table. The woman was observing the dealer and other player carefully, a blank expression on her face as she checked her cards. The man was there to pass some time, chatting with the dealer more than watching his cards or the woman around the table from him. Laughing when he spectacularly lost the hand. Phil liked the look of him, cheerfully spending an evening with strangers.

A hand slid up and onto his leg halfway up his thigh, their chairs were close enough to the table that no one else could see the errant limb and long years of hiding reactions to anything and everything kept him from jumping. 

“Deal you both in?” The dealer asked.

“Please.” Phil smiled blandly at him.

“Yup.” Clint’s answer was much brighter. Dazzling the man with his enthusiastic response.

With practiced flicks, he sent cards spinning across the felt. The chatter fell away as they each bent the corner of their cards up. Phil carefully looked under the corner farthest away from Clint, he would absolutely peek otherwise.

Ace of spades and three of hearts. Not useful, yet. Letting the cards flick back down to the table, he sat back and watched the rest of the table. Clint winked at him when their eyes met, leering slightly while his hand moved a fraction of an inch higher under the table. Phil kept his face perfectly still, blinking at him once before continuing his visual sweep of the table. Mr Chatty, was already talking to the dealer, he had barely glanced at his hand. The woman had taken a good look at her cards, and was now watching Clint and Phil. Apparently they were more of an issue than the older man.

“Bets?” The dealer finally found a second to break into the old man’s monologue on tropical fish.

Phil skidded a $20 chip across the felts, it came to a rest just off centre of the kitty. Clint’s chip quickly joined it, his resting exactly in the middle. It was accompanied by a squeeze to Phil’s thigh. Phil just signed at him.

The next two followed, the woman taking a second to decide whether to throw in. The first community card was the five of hearts. That could be good for Phil, he upped the ante putting in $40 this time. The others followed by declined to increase the betting. The second community card was another three, diamonds this time. Phil kept in the game, but Clint tapped out with a wry twist to his mouth and a shrug. The old man followed Clint with a chuckle, while the woman stayed in.

With a fancy spin, the dealer flipped the final card onto the table. The two of spades sitting dark on the green fabric. A single pair wasn’t much, but he wasn’t here to win. He threw another $20 into the pot. She followed him in and called.

They both flipped their cards. Sure enough she had beaten him, and beaten him well. A straight. He just smiled politely at her as she flicked her cards to the dealer and gathered up the pot, stacking the chips carefully in front of herself.

The next few hands passed in a similar fashion, the old man chattering away about nothing, Clint incrementally moving his hand further up Phil’s leg and the woman watching them all silently. Phil won the second hand, Clint the third, she picked up the fourth and fifth hands. The old man barely stayed in any hand long enough to place a bet.

Throwing his worthless hand in on the sixth hand, he felt Clint slide his hand up the last stretch of leg, nestling the blade of his palm against Phil’s crotch. Applying the tiniest amount of pressure against where Phil had been fully hard for the last three hands. At the same time, Clint flipped his cards with a grin, winning the hand.

Before Clint could sweep the pot towards himself, where it would join the messy pile of chips that had grown and shrunk as they had played, Phil lay a hand on his bicep.

“I’m done for the night. Clint?” Phil even impressed himself with how even his voice was. It should have been shaking like a leaf.

Clint pressed his hand in for a short second. “You sure you don’t want to play another hand?” His smirk was pure evil. 

The dealer was waiting for their decision, idly shuffling the deck. Mr Chatty, or Aaron as they had learnt, had mercifully fallen into silence as he didn’t have anyone to talk at. The woman, still unidentified, just looked bored, tapping a chip against the wooden edge of the table as she waited for the next hand to be dealt.

“You can stay if you like.” Phil offered, although if Clint chose to stay he was going to strangle him in his sleep for leaving him hanging.

“Nah. I’m good.” Clint finally gathered his chaps, sending a higher value chip sailing through the air as their tip to the dealer.

They smiled and nodded to the other two and left. Phil winding through the crowd with his usual grace. Beside him, Clint had a definite swagger in his stride. One large hand in Phil’s back pocket, staking a claim, and a knowing smirk on his face. Anyone who looked at them wouldn’t have any doubt about where they were going and what they were going to do when they got there.

The anticipation wasn’t helped by the periodic massaging squeezes Clint was lavishing on Phil’s backside as they waited for the elevator and as they rode to their floor. It was distracting. 

Phil stumbled as they walked through the door of their cabin. Clint’s hand had wormed its way down the back of Phil’s pants as he had been trying to get the key into the slot. The moment the door was shut behind them, Clint moved away. Putting some distance between them.

“What? Clint?” Phil stood in the middle of the room feeling strangely bereft. The man didn’t have a history of playing hard to get or being a tease. He only started something when he meant it. So why had he spent all night creeping into Phil’s senses, overwhelming him, and then backed off the second they were in a position to act on it.

Clint had ducked into the bedroom while Phil had been blinking after him. Sweeping back out in a different set of clothing, blue polo and khaki’s an almost exact copy for the ship’s uniform. A small, skin coloured piece of plastic was lobbed at his chest. Automatically he caught it to find one of their comm units in his hand.

“Back stop me while I check out those boxes?” Clint asked.

“Of, of course.” Phil stumbled over the words, trying to pull his mind out of his pants.

Clint had settled easily into the mission headspace. Face blandly welcoming that other guests would expect from a crewmember. For once it was Phil being left behind in his professionalism. A small sliver of hurt and confusion wedged itself into his heart and mind. Was that whole thing in the Casino messed up pay back?

He didn’t want to believe it of the other man, but sometimes the thoughts that niggled at the back of a person’s brain was beyond their control.

Cllint was almost out the door when Phil moved.

“Wait!”

“Phil? What’s wrong?” Clint turned back, hearing something in Phil’s voice. A warm, broad hand landed on Phil’s waist, helping to settle him.

“Just. God!” Phil ripped away from Clint’s warmth, needed some room because he knew what he was about to say could go very poorly. “I know it’s stupid, but I need you to say it.” He paced away across the cabin, turning when he got to the windows and taking two steps back towards where Clint was standing, snipers till.

“Say what Phil?” It came out as a whisper.

“The, the.” He flailed for a second, looking for the words. “The seduction, that wasn’t just a… I know, I know you wouldn’t.”

“A what Phil?” Clint closed the distance slightly, just one step. It was the love in his eyes that had Phil deflating.

“Everything is messed up. I just need you to say it wasn’t some sick game to get back at me. I’m sorry, I know you wouldn’t.” He took another step back towards his husband who looked like he had just been poleaxed.

“No. Phil. No. I wouldn’t. How did things get so fucked up? When did things get so fucked up?” This, them, was meant to be easy. Light and love and warmth, when the rest of their lives were seeped in blood. Clint stepped closer. Only a foot or so between separated them now.

“I know. I don’t know.” Phil stepped one last time and lent into the solid weight of the one person he had thought he would always trust unerringly. Unquestionably. It was shocking to his very core that that trust had been shaken.

Clint ran a hand through the hair that was starting to thin on Phil’s head. His other arm wrapped around Phil’s shoulders, keeping him close. Nosing into the skin where shoulder met neck, he in turn wound his arms around Clint’s waist. Both of them holding on, drawing comfort from the physical proximity of the other.

It was a while before either of them could move away. They stood there, slowly returning the stillness to their thoughts, their spirits that they needed to do their jobs without putting undue risk on others. 

With a sigh, Clint pulled away. “We going to be ok?” He let the hand in Phil’s hair trail down and cup the slightly stubbly cheek of his family.

“Yeah.” Phil wouldn’t settle for any other outcome, and when they were working on for a goal together they were unstoppable. “Yeah. We’re going to be fine.” He said with more conviction.

Swooping in, Clint dropped a light kiss on Phil’s lips and then was gone again.

= + =

Clint only realised how long they had stalled in the cabin when he went back out into the body of the ship. There had still been people around when they had stumbled through the ship, putting on a show. There weren’t now. Well, no there were, just much, much fewer. A couple were half hidden behind one of the many trees and a mother was walking up and down the end of the hallway, a squalling baby in her arms.

With no witnesses, he was able to hustle across the large public space, and jimmy the lock into the staff areas in the hallway on the opposite side of the boat from their cabin. The bare staff areas were as empty as the public space.

“I’m in. Going silent.” Clint mumbled into his end of the comms.

“Roger.” The warm tenor of Phil’s voice in his ear was the steadying presence it had always been on mission.

Finding the mysterious boxes was more challenging than their last two explorations. For over an hour he steadily searched the storage areas. Working his was deeper and below the waterline. He had made it all the way to the second last floor, in the large storage space that butted up against the stern bulkhead. The thrum of the engine vibrated up through his feet. He had almost given up hope of finding the boxes, when a glint of metal in a small space under a cooling pipe caught his eye.

Twisting down and under, to see it better he found what he was looking for. The wooden crate were stacked two high and three deep, with a dark cloth thrown over to help it blend into the shadow. He gave a double tap against his comm unit to signal he had eyes on target.

“Acknowledge.” The thick metal added a buzz to the words, slightly obscuring them but Clint could still make it out. 

Shoving the material aside, he pried the damaged wood away from where he had seen the glint of metal. The first plank fell away easily, but the rest were much better attached. Multiple nails at each end of the length of untreated wood holding strong.

He didn’t recognise and of the bits of machinery he could see. He poked through what he could, moving carefully and taking as many photos as he could to give to the engineers back at HQ. Maybe they would know what it was for, hardware wasn’t really his thing.

The mix of shining chrome, pink copper, and black leather didn’t look like something Clint wanted anything to do with. Unfortunately in his line of work there was a non-zero chance he would end up dealing with whatever fuckery this was.

Combing through each box, he started to build a mental map of the dis-assembled equipment. HIs mind piecing it back together to get an improbably, but terrifying picture of a torture chair. He hesitated. “Going off line.” He dropped his comm unit into one of the boxed before thumping the last plank into place.

The little unit had a tracker in it that would hopefully allow them, and by extension SHIELD, to follow where this thing was going. Black fabric back in place, exactly as it had been with the corner of one box showing, he left everything as he had found it. 

The return trip was even more deserted than the trip there. It was well into the early hours of the morning and he used the first floor out of the restricted areas he came across. In the public spaced he removed his polo, leaving him in khakis and a black singlet. Not the most cohesive look, but distinct from the staff uniform and easier to talk around if he did run into anyone. The most likely people being the cleaner who would know he wasn’t a crew member.

The only sound as he re-entered the cabin was the snick of the lock clicking into place. Phil was on the couch waiting. Relief crashed across the other man’s face, and was quickly followed by exhaustion. It had been a long and tiring day for them both.

“Come on love. Bed.” Clint held out a hand.

Phil took it with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm over on [Tumblr](https://quartzcelticas.tumblr.com/), and will be announcing somethings over there in the next day or so. So come over and say 'hi'.


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